SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Connecticut’s District Court has granted the Martinez Sampedro family a major concession in its ongoing legal dispute against Grupo Codere SA’s US debt-holders, upholding the family’s ‘discovery demand’ against Silver Point, Contrarian and Abrahams Capital hedge funds.
Securing its Connecticut demand, the Martinez Sampedro family – enterprise founders of Codere – will be able to access all information related to the US hedge funds refinancing of the bankrupt Spanish gambling group undertaken between 2014 and 2016.
As previously declared, Martinez Sampedro representatives intend to use its US demand in relation to the family’s corporate governance dispute being undertaken through Spain’s Capital Markets Commission (CNMV).
“The decision to go to the Justice of Connecticut responds that it is in this State where the registered office of Silver Point and another of the funds demanded is located and the authorization marks an unprecedented procedural milestone in Spain,” detailed a Martínez Sampedro statement.
A bitter two-year legal challenge sees the Martinez Sampedro family assert that US debt-holders led by Silver Point had failed to follow proper corporate control procedures in its €1 billion restructure of Codere, as deal stakeholders had ‘purposely bypassed’ recommending a takeover offer to founders once they had gained 30% control of the gambling group.
Furthermore, the family states that its executive voting rights had been restricted during the period despite maintaining 18% of Codere’s shareholding, branding illegal the appointments of Vicente Di Loreto as new Group CEO and Norman Sorensen as Executive Chairman.
This August, a CNMV filing disclosed that Codere governance had withdrawn outright the board representation of brothers’ Jose Antonio (former President) and Luis Javier (former VP) at the firm’s AGM.
