Gutta wins day in court against former chairman

RIGA - The Riga Regional Court has satisfied a suit submitted by the Icelandic owner of Gutta and allowed the latter to claim 259,000 lats (368,525 euros) against a former board chairman.


At first Gutta, a juice producer, had filed a 60,900-lat claim against Lydur Arni Fridjonsson, but the court augmented the claim more than four-fold.

In the initial claim application, Gutta stated that Fridjonsson had caused "extensive material loss" to the company and "with malicious intent."

In particular, Fridjonsson was found guilty of taking possession of some property of the company, its assets and payments after terminating his contract with the company.

According to Ieva Timermane, authorized representative of Gutta, the company increased the amount of the claim because other violations were revealed 's e.g., Fridjonsson transferred money to various foreign companies that had not provided any services to Gutta.

The claim states that labor relations between Gutta and Fridjonsson were terminated at the beginning of last September when the shareholders made the decision.

Fridjonsson has not commented on the court's decision.

The complete text of the court decision will be available on Sept. 23, and starting from this date the decision could be appealed within 20 days.

Gutta is the second largest juice producer in Latvia. It is solely owned by the company Nordic Partners, which belongs to Icelandic businessman and Gutta's council member Gisli Reynisson, board chairman Daumants Vitols and Icelandic company J&K Holding.