Semperit in legal battle with Thai JV

ERJ staff report (TP)

Vienna – Semperit AG Holding is striving to achieve a realignment of its 50/50 joint venture with the Sri Trang Agro Industry Group (Sri Trang) of Thailand.

Semperit said discussions with Sri Trang with respect to restructuring the partnership between the two companies have not led to results so far.

Recently, decisions regarding the company’s business practices, which were made by the Board of Directors of Siam Sempermed Corporation (SSC), the joint subsidiary of Semperit and Sri Trang, have been contested in a Thai court by an unnamed non-executive director nominated by Sri Trang.

Therefore, the management board of Semperit said on 17 July it intends to initiate all the legal steps necessary to uphold Semperit’s rights as a shareholder in the joint venture SSC.

The agreements concluded more than 25 years ago “proved their worth over a long period of time” according to Semperit, but the Austrian firm now says “the partnership has no longer been able to fulfill current requirements for increased transparency as well as the necessary objectivity, corporate governance and accountability of management decisions”.

Furthermore, the company added, as of the beginning of the year 2015, the marketing of the protective and examination gloves manufactured by the joint venture in Thailand will be realigned.

Semperit said: “Whereas the sales and distribution of the gloves in Europe and the Middle East will continue to be exclusively handled by Sempermed’s business operations in Austria, the markets in Asia, Africa and South America will be handled independently from one another. In contrast, sales and distribution in the USA will continue to be coordinated by the joint venture company Sempermed USA for the time being.”