Country for PR: United Kingdom
Contributor: PR Newswire Europe
Thursday, September 19 2019 - 21:17
AsiaNet
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
CHANTABURI, Thailand and BERLIN, Germany Sept 18 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

    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