(March 29): A leadership dispute within Lopez Inc, one of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates, led to the ouster of its president over what he said was a disagreement over a two-billion peso (US$33 million) capital infusion for media unit ABS-CBN Corp.
Federico Lopez sued some extended family members over his removal as president of Lopez Inc, the ultimate holding company of the Lopez family with interests spanning power generation and distribution, property, manufacturing and media. Federico claimed his ouster during a Feb 27 board meeting was illegal and sought his reinstatement, according to a court filing.
A court order dated March 26 prohibited the defendants including Eugenio Lopez III, Rafael Lopez, Miguel Ernesto Lopez, Martin Lopez and Maria Eugenia Brown from enforcing Federico’s ouster. Lopez Inc groups Lopez Holdings Corp, which controls ABS-CBN; First Philippine Holdings Corp; First Gen Corp and Energy Development Corp.
Federico said moves to remove him stemmed from his opposition to a proposal to use Lopez Inc’s reserve funds to infuse two billion pesos in capital to loss-making ABS-CBN, and insisted that unresolved audit findings at the media company first be addressed, the court filing showed.
On Saturday, ABS-CBN’s board of directors said that while the company is not a party to the case, it wanted to clarify that there were no audit findings and there was “nothing to resolve”. The claim is unfounded, the directors, which included two of the defendants, said in a statement.
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