Court ruling obliging Grindex shareholders to pay EUR 1.9 million to the state comes into effect

  • 2022-01-13
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - A court ruling obliging Kirovs and Filips Lipmans, the shareholders of Grindex pharmaceutical company, to pay EUR 1.9 million to the state to compensate for a loss caused to the special pensions budget, has come into effect. 

In the legal dispute, Riga Regional Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Public Asset Manager Possessor (formerly Privatization Agency), and ordered the farther and son Lipmans to pay over EUR 1.9 million to the Treasury, as well as to cover the legal costs. 

The Lipmans had filed a cassation appeal with the Civil Cases Department of the Latvian Supreme Court, but that appeal was rejected. Thus, the regional court's ruling came into effect, LETA was told at the court. 

As reported, on November 8, 2016, all state-owned shares in the joint-stock pharmaceutical company Grindex, held by the Privatization Agency, were sold at auction at Nasdaq Riga stock exchange.

The auction price for Grindeks shares was EUR 3.85, and by selling its 2.29 percent stake in Grindex, the Latvian state received EUR 846,153. Demand for the Grindex shares exceeded the amount sold by 29.8 percent.

In November 2016, Saeima members from the opposition For Latvia from the Heart (NSL) faction sent the Economics Ministry a letter in which they argued that the Grindex shares were sold at EUR 3.85 apiece, while the price should have been EUR 12.51 per share, since Grindex shareholders - the Lipmans family - were obliged to make a mandatory buyout offer, which they had failed to do. 

According to NSL estimates, the Lipmans family's failure to make the buyout offer led to a loss of EUR 1,903,295 to the state budget.