A minority shareholder of a public company filed a lawsuit against the RKKW’s clients, including the majority shareholder of that issuer, attempting to deprive him of the ability to exercise his voting rights on his shares. The lawsuit thus concerned one of the most important corporate rights of any shareholder. The seriousness of the case is also reflected in the value of the object of the dispute, which was set at over one hundred million PLN. This is the value of the shares held by the Client of RKKW, the exercise of voting rights from which was questioned.
The basis for the claim formulated in the statement of claim was the alleged failure of RKKW’s Client to fulfil notification obligations imposed on shareholders of public companies holding substantial blocks of shares. Their non-performance may, in principle, actualise the sanction of loss of the possibility to exercise voting rights. However, the law firm RKKW proved during the court proceedings that there were no grounds in this case to apply these strict sanction provisions to its client.
The court upheld the position presented by RKKW, as a result of which the action against our clients was dismissed in its entirety. The Clients were also awarded reimbursement of the costs of the proceedings.
“Satisfaction with the obtained decision is even greater, as the ruling in question should have a significant impact on the remaining lawsuits pending between the conflicted parties. The proceedings in question are one of many in which the axis of the dispute is the possibility for our client to exercise voting rights from its majority stake in a public company. The aforementioned verdict is the first ruling reached in the course of the ensuing corporate dispute (without taking into account numerous decisions dismissing the opponent’s motions to secure the claims asserted by it)” – comments Karol Maciej Szymański, Managing Partner at RKKW, who leads the legal services provided to clients in the case in question.
In the course of the court proceedings, the Clients are represented by attorney-at-law Piotr Frelak, attorney-at-law Kornelia Łuczejko and trainee attorney-at-law Karolina Kobojek.
