Court rejects minority shareholder case against Swiss Steel

The district court of the Swiss city of Lucerne has rejected a request for provisional measures by Swiss Steel Holding’s minority stakeholder Liwet against a capital increase. The latter is owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

The court decided so on the grounds that Liwet failed to present credibly valid reasons why the capital increase approved by shareholders on 22 December 2020 could be challenged. Amongst other things, the court held that Liwet had failed to credibly show that its minority rights would be violated by the planned capital increase, Kallanish learns from a statement by Swiss Steel.

The court further found that it was not credible that Liwet would be disadvantaged vis-à-vis majority stakeholder BigPoint Holding in the planned capital increase in any unjustified manner. Finally, the court recognised that Swiss Steel Holding had good reasons for executing the capital increase and rejected Liwet’s allegations claiming that shareholders had not been sufficiently informed.

In early January Liwet obtained a block on the registration of the capital increase with the commercial registry of the Canton of Lucerne (see Kallanish passim). For procedural reasons it is at present not entirely clear whether or when the block will be lifted to enable the company to start the execution of the capital increase, it says.