2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
In the dispute over claims for damages after the failed VW takeover, the Porsche Holding assesses its prospects for litigation as positive. The complaints are viewed as unfounded.
The Porsche SE are in dispute over high damage claims by shareholders after the takeover battle with VW confident of victory. "We judge our prospects for the process to be positive," said CEO Martin Winterkorn on Tuesday at the general meeting in Leipzig. "We still consider all pending lawsuits against Porsche SE to be unfounded - and in the USA and Great Britain to be inadmissible." Porsche has now managed to bring most of the lawsuits filed by fund companies to Germany.
41 million euros in reserves for litigation
According to experts, you cannot breathe a sigh of relief at Porsche. "The potential loads are considerable," said industry expert Stefan Bratzel from the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach. Currently, the legal dispute threatens to drag on because of a plaintiff's attorney's notification of illness and questions of jurisdiction. According to the annual report, Porsche has so far only set aside 41 million euros for the processes. The 2.6 billion euros that the holding company has in its cash register after the sale of the sports car manufacturer Porsche AG could serve as a buffer.
But they are actually planned differently. Porsche wants to invest in companies that complement the most important investment, the Volkswagen Group. The goal this year is one or two investments of 100 to 400 million euros. "The focus is on strategic investments in medium-sized companies," said Winterkorn. Suitable investment objects are currently being analyzed and examined.
Deselection of Wolfgang Porsche called for
The ongoing investigations against the Porsche supervisory board caused some unrest at the general meeting. Because of the investigation, he had doubts about the personal suitability of the chairman of the board, Wolfgang Porsche, as chairman of the meeting, said Martin Weimann from the “Consumer Advice Center for Investors” at the general meeting and requested that Porsche be deselected as chairman of the meeting.
Applications like this are often used to later prove legal violations. Weimann has experience with this: the lawyer had already made life difficult for Porsche in other proceedings. With his lawsuit against VW supervisory board boss Ferdinand Piëch, he was successful before the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court. It attested to Piëch that he had violated his supervisory duties as a supervisory board member during the takeover quarrel.
The actual attempt to sell Wolfgang Porsche was doomed to failure on Tuesday - the ordinary shares with voting rights are almost entirely in the hands of the Porsche and Piëch family. They voted against. (dpa)
