Attorney Roderich Schaetze: Thai Courts Deal elumeo SE Group a Heavy Blow – Workers Have the Right to Enter the PWK Premises, and Confiscate Assets – Operator of Juwelo TV in the Midst of a Violent Storm of Legal Disputes

PR80633

CHANTABURI, Thailand and BERLIN, Germany Sept 18 /PRNewswire＝KYODO JBN/ --

    The chain of disastrous events for elumeo SE, the operator of Juwelo TV,

continues. Following questionable management by Wolfgang Boyé, Thomas Jarmuske

and Bernd Fischer, for the past couple of years the company is in free downfall

dragging the subsidiaries with them into the abyss. According to a decision of

the Thai Labour Court dated September 12th, 2019, former PWK employees who have

received neither salary nor statutory severance pay, may make use of the

company's property (Case No. Ror 757/2662). The workers do now have the right

to immediately enter the PWK premises, identify any and all assets and

confiscate them to be sold at public auction. This means that the strategy of

orderly liquidation advocated by elumeo at the Shareholder Meeting in August

7th, 2019 can no longer be implemented. Against this backdrop, the provisions

of 7.7 million Euros should under no circumstances be sufficient. Further

financial burdens are to be expected.

    The elumeo management is currently in the midst of a violent storm of legal

disputes: elumeo's management is criminally investigated for fraud, both in

Germany and Thailand. Tens of million EUR lawsuits are filed against the

company by SWM Treuhandgesellschaft AG, on behalf of elumeo's subsidiary and

manufacturing arm PWK Jewelry Limited (Thailand). In addition to that, Kat

Florence Design Limited sues elumeo SE for damages due to non-performance of

contractual obligations. A former member of the Board of Directors has also

brought actions against elumeo SE for unlawful resolutions of the Board of

Directors passed forcefully by the Chairman Wolfgang Boye. Also Ottoman

Strategy Holdings SA (OSH), major shareholder of elumeo SE, filed a lawsuit

claiming deliberate untrue statements by Chairman Boye, in shareholder meetings

and claims the nullity of, among other things, Ingo Stober's election to the

board. A further lawsuit for the immediate appointment of a special auditor to

investigate the actions of elumeo's management with regard to the situation in

Thailand, possible unlawful tax reductions and the constantly deteriorating

financial situation of the company is in preparation.

    Last year, in December 2018, elumeo's management ordered the "solvent

liquidation" of PWK Jewelry Company, without paying anything from its debt of

more than 30 Million Euro for jewelry manufactured with bank loans in Thailand

and exported to Germany. Furthermore, elumeo's management, instead of providing

a coherent plan for liquidation to the PWK Management, demanded that PWK

Directors should come up with a solution to the financial havoc created by the

management of elumeo SE. They asked them to pay the salaries and creditors with

supposedly "readily accessible liquidity" consisting among other things in company

assets such as buildings which are under the mortgage from Siam Commercial

Bank (Thailand), a VAT refund expected in several years' time or a remaining stock

of unused leftover gems (most of them also unpaid to the suppliers).

    This incapacity of elumeo to provide any solution to the huge financial gap

created by them, led the unpaid workers of the PWK factory to seek their rights

in Thai courts. On September 12, 2019, under Case No. Ror 757/2662, they were

granted by the Thai Labour Court of Region 2 a Writ of Execution, appointing

488 former employees of PWK as the "execution officer to confiscate and

sequestrate the assets of the Debtor", giving them the right to immediately

enter the PWK premises, identify any and all assets and confiscate them to be

sold at public auction.

    This is an enormous blow to the elumeo group, because, together with the

special requisition order already issued by the Thai government against PWK's

land and building this will make any controlled sale of the company assets

impossible, placing the company on an unstoppable and uncontrollable downfall,

which could possibly lead to the insolvency of PWK or even of elumeo group. On

the same time, one by one, PWK unpaid suppliers started to sue, led by the big

diamond supplier Flawless and followed by the Thai supplier Bright Future. Many

other suppliers, including the logistics and security international G4S company

are not yet paid either.

    In view of these last developments, elumeo groups major shareholder Ottoman

Strategy Holdings (OSH is, again, demanding the immediate appointment of a

special auditor to the group, in order to clarify the activities of the

criminally investigated management led by Chairman Boye and executive directors

Tomas Jarmuske and Bernd Fischer. The reluctance of other shareholders,

especially Frankfurt Performance Management AG (FPM), represented by Raik

Hoffmann, to agree to such an audit, while declare their support for a

criminally investigated Chairman at elumeo's Shareholder Meeting is hard to

comprehend for shareholders who are in favor of a special auditor.

    - Picture is available at epa european pressphoto agency (http://www.epa.eu) -

    Contact:

    Rechtsanwalt Roderich Schaetze

    SWM Treuhand AG

    Schäfflerstraße 8, 80333 München

    Phone: +49-89-2040026-20

    e-mail: schaetze@schaetze.com

    Source:  Roderich Schaetze