Unique: Federal Court decision regarding Swissair claim
September 05, 2008 | by Unique
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September 05, 2008, The Swissair Liquidator Karl Wüthrich claimed against Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) for the recovery of approximately CHF 21.8 million in the year 2005. The claim applied to the pay-ment of airport and air traffic control charges for July 2001 by Swissair on October 4th, 2001. The claim was based on the debt enforcement and insolvency act (art. 288 "Schuldbe-treibungs- und Konkursgesetz") whereby all legal acts are voidable if transacted by the debtor within the previous five years prior to the authorisation of the debt-restructuring moratorium ("Bewilligung einer Nachlassstundung") in order to discriminate its creditors respectively to favour one creditor over another.
Position Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) At the proceeding Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) claimed that the payment of the expired air-port and air traffic control charges was based on the loans awarded to Swissair by the Swiss Federation on October 3rd, 2001 subsequent to the grounding, so that the other creditors were not affected by the payment. By the verdict of November 19th, 2007, the Commercial Court Zurich fully rejected the action of Swissair. However, the Liquidator of Swissair forwarded this decision to the Federal Court.
Claim partially approved The Federal Court has partially approved the claim today and sentenced Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) to a payment of approximately CHF 18.5 million plus interest. The decision was a majority ruling, with the majority not following the request of the Chairman of the Court. Since Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) expected a favourable court ruling, the company did not con-sider this lawsuit with a provision in its Balance Sheet. Therefore this payment will fully impact the company’s P&L 2008.
Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) regrets the Federal Court's decision.
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Source: Unique, Press release