THE annual stockholders’ meeting of tuna canner Alliance Select Foods International Inc. has been deferred after its Singaporean minority holders secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Court of Appeals (CA).
The CA third division issued on Tuesday, granted the petition of Hedy Yap-Chua—a minority shareholder of the tuna canner—to stop the company’s annual stockholders meeting scheduled on Wednesday.
The TRO is effective for 60 days, while Chua posted a bond of P1 million.
”The issue on whether the trial court properly dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction for nonpayment of docket fees must be resolved the soonest before this case becomes moot and academic, or a decision herein becomes ineffectual through the conduct of the annual stockholders’ meeting scheduled on December 16,” the CA said in its decision penned by Associate Justice Mario Lopez.
Alliance Select said it was “constrained to defer” its meeting after the issuance of the TRO.
In August the Regional Trial Court in Pasig dismissed the 34-page complaint filed by Chua for lack of jurisdiction over the case as complainant failed to pay the docket fees
The local court also denied the request of Chua to issue a TRO to stop the officials of the company, headed by its Chairman Jonathan Dee, from conducting stock-rights offer (SRO) before its annual stockholders’ meeting. Chua’s complaint asked for a TRO to compel the company to hold its annual stockholders’ meeting before the SRO.
She claimed that Dee’s group violated basic stockholder rights by requiring shareholders to subscribe to a P1-billion capital raising exercise before holding the company’s 2015 annual general meeting that they say should have been held on June 15.
The SRO exercise, however, will further dilute Chua’s holdings. Chua’s group previously owned about 34 percent, but with the group of Strongoak Inc. infused some $12.9 million (about P563 million) last year, it diluted the Singaporean holdings to about 24 percent.
The SRO will further dilute their holdings to 12 percent.
Chua is also accusing the Dee group of misappropriating many of the company’s funds.
The Dee group, meanwhile, denied the accusations.