Saverys shipping company Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) said on Thursday that a US judge had rejected a bid by a shareholder to halt its mandatory offer for the remaining shares in Euronav it does not own.
The District Court for the Southern District of New York has denied a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by certain funds managed by FourWorld Capital Management.
FourWorld has been trying to prevent CMB from completing the offer in the US, and in Belgium through a separate court action.
CMB did not mention the Belgian process but added that both offers will close as scheduled on Friday.
Euronav said it had been told of the decision. CMB had earlier alleged abuse of the court system by FourWorld.
The fund started proceedings in the US at the end last month, with a parallel suit revealed earlier this month.
CMB’s lawyer, Michael Keats of Fried Frank, claimed FourWorld stated in the European proceedings that it intended to use confidential and proprietary documents produced by CMB in the US action.
Euronav said the complaint sought mainly for CMB to adjust the bid price, taking into account alleged special benefits that would have been granted to Frontline on top of the cash purchase price paid by CMB for its shares of the company.
FourWorld has not commented.
CMB launched a mandatory bid for the remaining shares in VLCC and suezmax specialist Euronav earlier in February, following the acquisition of Frontline’s stake, which lifted CMB’s ownership of Euronav to 57%.
Since that deal, FourWorld increased its own stake in Euronav from just under 1% to 2.41% by acquiring at least 3.13m shares for $55.8m.
According to CMB, FourWorld’s representative had every opportunity to raise any objections at Euronav’s recent shareholder meetings, during which the supervisory board provided detailed responses.
