A Makati City court judge withdrew the criminal cases filed against the son of the late business leader Washington SyCip and his four business associates at the Alliance Select Foods International Inc. accused of violating the Corporation Code of the Philippines.
Judge Andres Bartolome Soriano, of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148, in his order dated July 9, 2018, granted the motion filed by prosecutors to withdraw the information and attachments of cases against ASFI executives, namely: George E. SyCip, Jonathan Y. Dee, Maria Grace T. Vera-Cruz, Antonio C. Pacis, and Raymond K.H. See.
Based on the July 4 motion filed by Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Emilie Fe delos Santos, the information pertaining to the cases against SyCip and his fellow businessmen at the tuna canning firm must be withdrawn due to the court’s lack of jurisdiction.
The Motion to Withdraw filed by Delos Santos was pursuant to the review resolution of the court dated March 20.
The cases against ASFI officials stemmed from the complaint of Singaporean Hedy S.C. Yap-Chua, then a stockholder and/or director of ASFI, who claimed that the company was arbitrarily withholding its corporate records, including the stock and transfer records, from her and other stockholders.
The complainant stated that such refusal to give access and examine ASFI records is a violation of Sections 74 and 75 in relation to Section 144 of the Corporation Code which states that “records of all business transactions of the corporation and the minutes of any meetings shall be open to inspection by any director, trustee, stockholder or member of the corporation” and the right of stockholders to financial statements, respectively.
Section 144, meanwhile, stated that violators of the code will be punished by a fine of not less than P1,000 but not more than P10,000, or imprisonment of not less than 30 days but not more than five years.
Estafa and falsification of public documents charges lodged against ASFI officials filed by Yap-Chua were earlier dismissed by the court.
The joint resolution dismissing the charges was signed by Department of Justice Undersecretary Deo L. Marco.