The French justice has ordered an independent expert to examine the accusations of Esso’s minority shareholders who suspect that the US parent company ExxonMobil harmed its French subsidiary in oil purchase and resale contracts, according to the decision consulted this Friday by AFP .
The Versailles Court of Appeal considered that there were “serious indications of incomplete information likely to feed fear, given the opacity thus maintained by the company, of practices contrary to its social interest,” according to the decision issued this Thursday and revealed by the echoes Friday.
The legal action was launched in October 2021 by minority shareholders, including the activist fund Ciam, who represent less than 3% of the shares of Esso, an 83% subsidiary of the ExxonMobil group.
Sideways
“The conviction of the plaintiffs is that Esso’s extreme discount on its equity (almost two-thirds discount as of June 30, 2022) is explained by improper deductions by the group of its majority shareholder ExxonMobil under intra-group agreements,” he explains to the AFP. his lawyer Julien Visconti.
“Indeed it seems that despite the importance of these financial flows, which refer to several billion euros each year, only 1% of these flows are classified as regulated agreements (which allows reinforcing control over transactions in issue),” he adds.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, taking the view contrary to an initial decision by the Nanterre Commercial Court, commissioned an expert to, among other things, “list and describe the agreements” between Esso and any ExxonMobil group company on “Esso’s rights to supply crude oil to Exxon, resale of crude oil to Exxon” and “sale of petroleum products to Exxon”.
repurchase at a good price
The expert, whose mission is “intended to support a future liability action”, must also establish the “precise capital link” between the entities that have signed each of these agreements” and “identify all the transactions registered by Esso” under these agreements.
“We do not comment on judicial decisions, especially when they are not final,” an Esso spokesman was quoted as saying by Les Echos. “We will see at the time if we intend to file an appeal. An expert opinion in no way prejudges the expert’s conclusions,” he added.
According to the business daily, “minority shareholders no doubt hope to pressure ExxonMobil to take Esso off the stock market and buy back minority shares at a good price.”
Source: BFM TV
