London's High Court has awarded a judgment in favour of Navios Group head Angeliki Frangou in a bitter dispute with her brother John Frangos over personal financial and business matters.
Commercial Court Judge Mark Pelling granted declarations sought by Frangou and two of her companies that effectively dismiss a raft of accusations that Frangos lodged against his sister.
Angeliki Frangou had this to say about the conclusion of the legal fight with her brother:
"This was a family tragedy and I'm genuinely saddened this matter had to be resolved in court.
"The court's decisions on the issues, and the ruling to award me legal costs on an indemnity basis, underscores the baseless allegations that precipitated this depressing affair.
"My true hope is that time heals frayed relationships and we can again be a family."
Photo: Helen Sotiriadis
"Their disputes have been fought out with undisguised and uncompromising hostility in these proceedings, throughout this trial and in Greece," he noted in his judgment on Monday.
Pelling's declarations in favour of Frangou, as well as her Ferand Business Corp and Maritime Enterprises Management, throw out so called extra-judicial legal notices Frangos filed in Greece in late 2019.
In the notices, which are a Greek equivalent to letters of claim, Frangos had claimed his sister owed his First Lines $1.18m in outstanding ship management fees.
He also accused Frangou of withholding information about a company that they jointly controlled and of installing a director without his consent.
Frangou rejected all the allegations, and Pelling sided with her in his judgment.
Although Frangou is best known for heading the Navios Maritime group of public companies, the case concerns her private businesses and was heard at a trial in London in October.
The defendants are Maritime Investments Holding (MIH), in which the siblings had equal stakes, and Kolen International, which is owned by Frangos.
MIH is a holding company for its shipowning subsidiaries and operates bulkers, the proceeds from which were shared by the two siblings.
Its position was not aligned with Kolen in the litigation and the judgment was awarded in MIH's favour, as well as the claimants.
Pelling has ordered Kolen to pay MIH and the Frangou parties' court costs on an indemnity basis, which judges in England and Wales can use to show the court’s disapproval of conduct during the litigation.
Behind the scenes
Pelling's judgment shines light on some of the more personal details behind the siblings' dispute.
Frangos, he noted, has suffered "significant financial difficulty in recent years" caused by "long-running ruinous litigation" in Greece stemming from his divorce, which forced Frangos to pay out $58.5m.
Pelling said the divorce left Frangos "unable to raise finance to carry on his business career", which he resumed in 2007. His sister provided financial support from around 2012 until their relationship broke down in 2019, the judgment shows.
It seems the financial support offered by Frangou was more than generous, even covering maintenance of her brother's Ferrari, according to the judgment.
She also assisted her brother when vessels owned by his companies were arrested by financiers following lending defaults.
"Apart from the [MIH] fleet, John had other vessels that he owned and operated. He was constantly in need of funds to meet obligations, both business and personal," Frangou said in her witness statement, quoted in the judgment.
"I had provided John with significant financial support since 2012 but what happened from 2017 to 2019 was on a different scale because of the volume of problems that John was encountering."
Her brother's approach to asking for money was "to press and harass to the point where you would concede because it was easier to do so than to continue to resist", Frangou stated.
Frangos took the step of filing his legal notices in Greece after his sister asked financial advisor and MIH director Sheldon Goldman to liaise with Ashley Katz, a restructuring specialist partner at the London office of the US law firm Fried Frank in 2019.
Frangos said he would meet with Katz and Frangou's other advisors, but not Goldman.
"This resulted in a response from Mr Goldman in uncompromising terms," Pelling noted.
Goldman, in an email quoted in the judgment, offered another meeting with himself and Katz in London, telling Frangos there would be no further payments until the meeting was convened and proposals to resolve the situation were in place.
"Please note that if you do not attend the meeting, you do so at your own risk," Goldman said in the email. "My client strictly reserves the right to take such necessary and appropriate steps as she may be advised to protect her interests."
Frangos filed his five extra-judicial notices in October and December 2019.
Frangos did not respond to a request for comment.
