Attorney Roderich Schaetze: Final Blow for elumeo SE: Court Orders Confiscation of Company Assets Including Land and Factory Building of Subsidiary PWK in Thailand - Situation Gets Out of Control for elumeo-Management

PR80719

BANGKOK and CHANTHABURI, Thailand, September 24, 2019 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/--

The downfall of elumeo SE, operator of Juwelo TV, self called "the leading European

online retailer of high-quality gemstone jewelry" reaches the point of no return.

Thailand Labour Courts, under the Labour Red Case No. Ror 473-596/2562,

case filed by hundreds of former workers of PWK Jewelry Limited, fully owned

subsidiary of elumeo SE, granted the ex-workers the right to confiscate all PWK's assets,

including the land and the factory building. For eluemo SE the troubles are far from over,

since this is a "forced liquidation" and the workers will sell their seized assets well below

market price. The difference to the debt will remain in the books of elumeo SE.

This court order came as a surprise: not just machinery and office equipment

can be confiscated by the workers, but also the factory building and the land

it stands on. As the Court Order states: "The executing officer would like to

announce that the Labour Court Region 2 has the writ of executing to confiscate

the assets of the 5 Defendants. Now, the executing officer has already confiscated

the asset of PWK Jewelry Company Limited - Defendant No.1 , which is the Land

Title Deeds No. 62236; Land No. 61, dealing file No. 2267, Chanthanimit,

Muang Chanthaburi, Chanthaburi, with buildings".

Current events in Thailand appear to show that the management of elumeo SE has

lost control of the situation. This is a final blow to the already troubled elumeo SE,

which under Wolfgang Boyé's chairmanship was dragged into a web of criminal

investigations, fraud, lawsuits worth of millions of EUR, affecting lives of hundreds of

people which were left with unpaid salaries and legal settlements. After this point,

even the utopian "solvent liquidation" ordered by elumeo's Executive Board,

and which was never sustained by any real facts turns into a clear impossibility.

With the physical factory in the Thai province of Chanthaburri gone and over

600 jobs lost, the conditions of the tax holiday, which was granted by the

Board of Investment in Thailand, are violated. The Thai tax authorities are

likely to claim back Millions of Euro for unfulfillment of the conditions of

the tax holiday granted to the Thai elumeo subsidiary PWK Juwellery Limited.

This would be an additional burden in the books of cash strapped elumeo SE.

It is probably a task for a special auditor or for the prosecutor's office to investigate

the decisions and actions of the Executive Board of elumeo, which, apart from

Wolfgang Boyé, includes Gregor Faßbender-Menzel, Anette Bronder, Ingo Stober,

Bernd Fischer (criminally investigated together with Wolfgang Boye), Boris Kirn and

Frank Broer. Their decisions led to this situation, and who the Executive Board assessed

that a "solvent liquidation" of PWK could be possibly conducted using as liquidity assets

under mortgage, VAT to be recovered in several years and offsetting dividends for profits

never made but on paper, as well as for exported and unpaid for jewelry,

Market observers wonder about the role of the single members of elumeo's Board

of Directors and whether the Board members, who are well remunerated, are fulfilling

their supervisory board duties. OSH as the one of the initial shareholders believes that

the Executive Board of elumeo is as responsible for this situation as the Executive Directors

(of which two are already criminally investigated for fraud, both in Germany and Thailand).

Furthermore, OSH believes that the refusal to appoint a special auditor to look into this whole

devastating situation is, at least, curious and rises numerous question marks regarding

the legality and transparency of elumeo's management's actions.

The questionable and troubled management is still upheld by the support of Raik Hoffmann

of Frankfurt Performance Management AG (FPM) who repeatedly refused any suggestion of

OSH and clearly stated his support for the criminally investigated Wolfgang Boyé.

In fact, in December 2018, Mr. Hoffmann and other shareholders voted against

OSH's proposal to invest, without any guarantees on elumeo's side, a fresh

breath of capital into the company, up to 15 million EUR, in order to save the

situation generated by Wolfgang Boyé and the Executive Director's management.

They simply dismissed the fact that the whole system can collapse - unfortunately,

today, being proven wrong. In December 2018, Raik Hoffmann also voted in favor of

removal of two Board Members who were questioning the legality of Mr. Boye's actions

and who were also pushing for the appointment of a special auditor or at least,

of a third-party legal audit on all the deeds of Boye's management. Even at that time,

Mr. Boye was refusing access to company documents and data, to the Board Members

questioning his decisions, affecting the legality of the Executive Board function.

Together with the company assets, elumeo's last chance to settle at least any

portion of the debt, the personal assets of PWK Directors will be gone, all

because of elumeo's so called "solvent liquidation". In fact, the Executive

Board of elumeo ordered the "solvent liquidation" without any sound financial

plan or forecast, reputedly asking the PWK Company directors to come up

themselves with a "meaningful plan" for liquidating a company that had tens of

millions of EUR in unpaid jewelry, which Wolfgang Boyé tried to offset against

dividends for profit just made out on paper.

OSH reiterates its decision to follow all legal paths of uncovering the deeds

that led to this catastrophe and hereby is asking the Executive Board Members,

which are not criminally investigated, respectively, Gregor Faßbender-Menzel,

Anette Bronder, Ingo Stober, Boris Kirn and Frank Broer to carefully respect

and watch their legal duties as Board Members and don't be caught in any

potentially questionable acts.

Picture is available at epa (http://www.epa.eu)

For further information:

Attorney Roderich Schaetze

SWM Treuhand AG

Schäfflerstraße 8, 80333 München

phone: +49 89 2040026-20

e-mail: schaetze@schaetze.com

SOURCE: Roderich Schaetze