Last week, the court upheld the interim safeguards imposed by the Vilnius Regional Court last October. The measures, which involved the seizure of Alstom company’s assets, including cash, were applied at the request of Kruonio Hidroakumuliacinės Elektrinės Statyba (Kruonio HAE Statyba), a company in bankruptcy.
Privately-owned Kruonio HAE Statyba asked the court to order Alstom to pay 11.098 million litas in debt plus 3.285 million litas in interest and 8.49 percent procedural interest.
Kruonio HAE Statyba notified the court that Alstom Power Sweden suffered around 378 million litas in losses in recent years, its liabilities to creditors totaled 633 million litas, and the arbitration and court proceedings would affect its solvency hence there were risks that the court decision would not be executed, the court said in a decision.
Meanwhile, Alstom told the court that the data were outdated and in the 2010-2011 financial year the company’s equity increased to 593 million litas, the company booked approximately 42.5 million litas in net earnings and reduced short-term liabilities by 105 million litas. Moreover, the company’s assets only decreased by some 82 million litas, which meant that the company was profitable, it was reducing its debts to creditors and its earnings exceeded the amount demanded by the claimant by three times.
“The court’s conclusion that Alstom may attempt to avoid enforcing the court’s decision favorable for the claimant and to hide or transfer its existing assets to the third persons is unfounded. The court has not taken into account the fact that Alstom has been operating for almost 100 years and implemented all unfavorable court decisions during that period,” the company told the court.
Moreover, the company pointed out that it was a subsidiary of Dutch-registered Alstom N.V. that was owned by France’s concern Alstom, which was quoted on the Paris stock exchange. In 2010-2011 financial year the turnover of the concern’s companies totaled 20.9 billion euros, and the concern was the global leader in hydro energy, nuclear energy, manufacturing of fast trains, trams and metro trains.
Meanwhile, Kruonio HAE Statyba claims that Alstom’s long-term assets are worth meager 14.5 million litas and the company has not provided any proofs that it will manage to honor its liability to Kruonio HAE Statyba.
On 6 October the Vilnius Regional Court seized the company’s assets and cash although allowed to pay wages to employees, to make other labor-related payments as well as payments to the budget and to Kruonio HAE Statyba.
