Business
Sipiem Appeal Judgement
Sipiem Appeal Judgement.
About this update from Quantum Blockchain Technologies Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n18 June 2024Quantum Blockchain Technologies Plc (”QBT” or ”the Company”) Sipiem Appeal Judgment The Company announces that on 10 June 2024, the Court of Appeal of Venice (the ”Court”) issued a judgment on the appeals lodged by the defendants in Company subsidiary Clear Leisure 2017 Ltd’s (”CL17”) lawsuit against the former directors and statutory auditors of Sipiem in Liquidazione Srl (”Sipiem”) and the related counterappeals filed by CL17. The Court of Appeal rejected all of the Sipiem defendants’ appeals with the exception of a minor claim. As a result, all damages awarded to CL17 as announced on 1 November 2022 were upheld by the Court, with the sole exception being the reduction of liability for one of the former directors by an amount of €105,412, reducing the total damage award to c.€6.1m, (the ”Judgment”). The Court confirmed the liability of the former directors and statutory auditors of Sipiem and also extended the finding of liability to the members of the internal audit committee, former directors and the main defendant’s family members whom the Court had, at a preliminary holding in the appeal, suspended enforcement of the lower court’s Judgment pending the appeal’s outcome. Finally, the Court accepted a withdrawal of an appeal by from one of the former Sipiem directors against her insurer.As a result, the Company may now seek to fully enforce the Judgment against all of the defendants for an aggregate amount of €6,083,562 in damages (plus interest and adjustments for inflation to accrue from different dates until the date of satisfaction of the Judgment), plus €85,499 in legal expenses for the trial court action and €48,677 in legal expenses for the appeal (such latter expense to be satisfied by one of the defendants’ insurers). Other legal expenses were reciprocally compensated and €5,000 were assessed against all parties. As previously disclosed in the Company’s announcements of 16 May and 4 June 2024, a settlement agreement of €700,000, with certain defendants and their professional insurer (the “Settlement”), was subject to the scheduling, by the Venice Court, of a hearing to approve the Settlement, before the issue of the appeal ruling. The appeal ruling has however been issued prior to the scheduling of the hearing, and therefore, the €700,000 settlement agreement ...