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Wednesday, September 25 2019 - 06:08
AsiaNet
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
BANGKOK and CHANTHABURI, Thailand, September 24, 2019 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/--

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