Chinese foodservice group Joyvio, which owns Chilean salmon-farming firm Australis, recently suffered a second setback in its legal proceedings against Isidoro Quiroga, a Chilean businessman who used to own Australis and who Joyvio has accused of committing one of the “greatest frauds in the history of Chile.”
Quiroga sold Australis to Joyvio in 2018 for USD 921 million (EUR 843 million); however, following the sale, Joyvio alleged Quiroga had engaged in hiding, falsifying, or adulterating critical information during the sales process, including what the company now deems was deliberate overproduction to inflate salmon-production numbers and, therefore, the company’s valuation when it came time to negotiate a sale.
Joyvio subsequently filed suit against Quiroga for USD 1.22 billion (EUR 1.12 billion) in restitution and damages.
Quiroga has called the accusations “falsehoods and slander,” insisting that all the details of Australis’s present and past production, as well as environmental and sectoral permits, were made available to Joyvio and its specialized advisors throughout the due diligence period of the sale. He has also questioned why the accusations surfaced four years after the purchase.
Aiming to find an avenue to attain some compensation for what it claims was a deceitful sales process, Joyvio took legal action in the U.S. state of Delaware against Quiroga and South Lake One LLC, a company based in the state and linked to Quiroga, at the end of 2023.
With a population of about 1 million people, Delaware is one of the U.S.’s smallest states, but it is the legal home to many companies, such as South Lake One and more than 65 percent of Fortune 500 firms, thanks to its corporate-friendly environment.
At the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, Joyvio sought a case on the grounds of avoidance, which according to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (Uncit) is the one-sided right of a party to terminate a contract.
“Such termination of a contract is the hardest sword that a party to a sales contract can draw if the other party has breached the contract. No other remedy – claim for performance, price reduction, or damages – has the same incisive effect,” Uncit said.
In the latest turn of events, at the end of August ...
