* The lawyers who won the lawsuit claim that the court"s decision sets a precedent, which will allow shareholders in other companies to request the buyback of shares
Two courts of Cluj have determined that the legal status of the Rasdaq market doers not allow it to be considered as a regulated market, ruling in favor of the minority shareholders of a company, who were asking for their right to make an exit, according to law firm "Zamfirescu Racoţi Predoiu".
The two minority shareholders, who own about 10% of a company listed on the Rasdaq, "Arta Culinară" Cluj-Napoca (ARCU), went to court, after the company refused to buy back their shares, when they expressed their intention to exit the company, as they did not approve of the company"s plans to merge with another company. The lawyers of the two minority shareholders claim that the company told the two shareholders that, if they didn"t agree with the merger, they could sell their shares on the Rasdaq market.
Stan Tîrnoveanu, senior partner at law firm "Zamfirescu Racoţi Predoiu", who handled this case, said: "We have calculated that it would have taken our clients 23 years to sell their shares at a price 37 times lower than the one mentioned in the merger report, or in 3500 years at a price similar to the one mentioned in the merger report, and thus we have argued that, because of this, the shareholders do not really benefit from the right to withdraw from the company.
It"s like allowing the exertion of the right to marry only after 50 years have elapsed from the moment of the marriage ceremony. The shareholders in question ran the risk of remaining captive in a company which was planning a merger which they did not approve, even though in theory the law allowed them to make their exit".
The stake of the lawsuit was the following: if the Rasdaq was labeled as a regulated market, t
