By MST
Business | Posted on Jul. 05, 2013 at 12:01am | manilastandardtoday.com
The Uniwide
Group said it will challenge before the Court of Appeals what it called the
“oppressive” decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to dissolve the
once dominant retail chain.
The six
petitioner-companies under the Uniwide Group, in a motion for extension of time
to file petition for review, asked for more time to respond this month to the
SEC en banc order to dissolve them.
The Uniwide
Group said it filed before the appellate court on May 13 a motion for
certiorari to direct the SEC to act on the petitioner-companies’ long-pending
appeal for the corporate watchdog to let them withdraw from its receivership so
they can deal directly with their last remaining creditors on their own.
It said after
ignoring the petitioners’ repeated appeals since 2010 for the SEC to allow them
to pursue their 15-year rehabilitation program, the SEC, in response to
Uniwide’s May 13 petition before the CA, suddenly decided in an en banc session
on May 30 to terminate the recovery plan and move for the dissolution of all
the group’s companies.
The
petitioners, in their latest motion for extension dated June 21, asked the
court to give them until July 6 to respond to the SEC’s termination and
dissolution order. “The SEC en banc has erred in its appreciation of the facts,
and has departed from applicable laws and jurisprudential doctrines,” they said
in their motion for extension.
“Wherefore,
petitioners respectfully pray that the Honorable Court grant them…..until July
6, within which to finalize and file the petition for review,” they added.
The Uniwide
Group said its rehabilitation was still viable when a SEC hearing panel said
otherwise three years ago, given that that “their assets in the total amount of
P19.864 billion are more than enough to pay off their liabilities in the total
amount of P11.1 billion.”
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