As a reminder, following the settlement approved on 13 October 2020 by the Court, over the objection of one shareholder, the plaintiffs filed a new complaint on November 8 2021, alleging that Solomon and the other defendants had not fulfilled their part of the agreement. In that framework, they filed a motion to appoint a receiver over SIAF.
Subsequently, and because of legal considerations that I do not care sufficiently about to try to understand fully, this motion was refiled as part of the initial lawsuit (the one which ended in the settlement). The new complaint was put on hold while the refiled - thereby reopened - lawsuit played out.
The judge has now rejected this refiled motion, interestingly enough echoing the concerns of the lone objecting shareholder:
"...many of the remaining terms appear to be no more than agreements to agree, which, assuming they are even enforceable, pose serious difficulties for a party seeking to establish noncompliance."
It is very clear from the final words of the judge's order, that the plaintiffs were thoroughly had by Solomon when they agreed to the settlement; that they, as we say on this side of the pond, ont été bien roulés dans la farine:
"At bottom, the problem is that Plaintiffs’ motion is not really intended to enforce the terms of the settlement agreement at all. Instead, Plaintiffs contend that there are ongoing institutional failures at SIAF that the settlement agreement has failed to correct. But many of these institutional failures predated the parties’ settlement. And, in any event, Plaintiffs are bound by the settlement to which they agreed."
As far as I understand, this means that the second, refiled, motion now has failed.
What is not clear to me is what will happen to the initially filed new complaint of November 8 2021, which was put aside while the refiled motion played out.
It may be that the fact that the plaintiffs have entered into a settlement, which led to their initial suit being dismissed with prejudice, will invalidate any subsequent lawsuits that would be filed for essentially the same reasons. I am not qualified to assess this matter, but there are no doubt other forum dwellers who are (downthehatch springs to mind).
At any rate, below a link to the judge's denial. Sorry to bring bad news, but as we all know, unpleasant tidings had better been brought forth as soon as possible, to get it over and done with.
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