2023-07-23 03:28:28
At the beginning of July, Australis and Food Investment SpA (a subsidiary of the Chinese group Joyvio in Chile) began proceedings in the Florida courts to access the financial information that Isidoro Quiroga -and his related companies- has in the JP Morgan Chase bank.
They did so with a formal request in the US court and supported it with the statement of three lawyers: the Chileans Jorge Bofill and Gabriel Zaliasnik and the British jurist Natalie Todd, partner of the Cooke, Young & Keidan law firm. The latter has extensive experience in a conflict of similar characteristics: the legal dispute between two Russian oligarchs, Alexander Tugushev and Vitaly Orlov, regarding the ownership of Norebo, a fishing business group valued at US$1.5 billion.
The disagreement between the salmon farm and Isidoro Quiroga broke out at the beginning of this year. Joyvio, the current owners of Australis, accuse the local businessman withheld information when he sold the firm for US$920 million in 2019.
“The requested evidence will be used to support civil claims before the English court and the investigations and prosecutions of the tax authorities in Chile,” reads the document drafted by the Sequor Law firm, a Miami-based law firm that specializes in asset recovery, fraud, insolvency, and financial services litigation.
In his statement, Jorge Bofill explains that Isidoro Quiroga and his two sons, in addition to certain related companies, had a link with the US bank and with Fernando Cabalin, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase Miami. To support the relationship between the Chilean family and the North American entity, he exemplifies: “In March 2021, a company called South Cone Investment Limited Partnership, was named as a debtor in a presentation of the Personal Asset Security Act (PPSA) in Ontario, Canada, where the guaranteed party was JP Morgan Chase”.
This is why, the Chilean lawyer describes, “it is believed that the proceeds from the transaction (Joyvio’s purchase of Australis) flowed, at least in part, through JP Morgan Chase.”
However, he qualifies: “JP Morgan Chase is not currently, and is not expected to be in the future, a party to the unfair administration procedure (in Chile).”
The following week Benjamín Investments entered the ring. Represented by well-known North American studies, Akerman LLP and Miller & Chevalier Chartered -both focused on complex litigation, taxes and financial crimes-, requested to officially intervene in the case to oppose Australis’s request.
These firms, apart from representing Asesorías e Inversiones Benjamín and Isidoro Quiroga and their children, also work with the businessman’s sisters (María Victoria and María Dolores), Martín Guiloff (former chairman of the board), Luis Felipe Correa (former director of Australis), among others who have been sued.
Until now, the US bank has not referred to the Chilean salmon company’s request nor to Quiroga’s request for intervention. They are all waiting for Judge José Martínez, a magistrate who gained notoriety for the Sinaltrainal Case in 2001, a dispute that erupted when a Colombian union alleged that Panamco, a local Coca-Cola-affiliated bottling company, helped a group of paramilitaries in the murder of several members of their union. The organization asked for financial compensation of US$500 million, but the legal authority dismissed the charges.
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