Adds particulars of arbitration award, feedback from supply, background
MILAN, Could 14 (Reuters) – A Milan arbitral tribunal dominated in favour of Blackstone Group Inc BX.N in a disputed sale of the headquarters of RCS RCSM.MI, rejecting all claims superior by the Italian writer, a court docket doc seen by Reuters confirmed, confirming what sources had stated earlier on Friday.
RCS Mediagroup, which publishes the influential every day Corriere della Sera, launched arbitration proceedings in late 2018 to nullify the 2013 sale of its historic headquarters in central Milan to Blackstone, saying the U.S. funding agency had paid too low a worth at a time when RCS confronted monetary difficulties.
Blackstone, which paid 120 million euros ($145 million) for the workplaces, had in flip accused RCS of falsely claiming it nonetheless owns the constructing and of improperly blocking its sale to Germany’s Allianz ALVG.DE.
The sale of the property “was nothing greater than a industrial negotiation” wherein the customer “legitimately” tried to attain the “most advantageous phrases of sale” with out proof of “any undue strain on the opposite social gathering,” the arbitration award stated.
RCS was not instantly accessible for remark.
“The panel of judges totally recognised the validity of the contract and the equity of Blackstone’s behaviour throughout all of the sale course of,” a supply near the U.S. fund stated.
Friday’s ultimate choice by the tribunal follows a partial sentence printed in Could final 12 months ruling that the sale was legitimate.
The ruling had requested two skilled surveys on RCS’s monetary state of affairs in 2013 and on the property’s market worth on the time, to evaluate whether or not there had been any damages for RCS and to what diploma.
The U.S. funding agency filed two lawsuits in New York which have been placed on maintain pending the end result of the arbitration in Italy.
It’s in search of as much as $600 million in damages from RCS and from its chairman and primary shareholder Urbano Cairo, who took management of the corporate in 2016, a supply near the fund stated on the time.
RCS’s monetary report, printed on the corporate’s web site, exhibits it has not put aside danger provisions for the authorized dispute.
(Reporting by Claudia Cristoferi and Alfredo Faieta in Milan Modifying by Giulia Segreti and Matthew Lewis)
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