A Chilean court has authorized a subpoena request seeking access to emails related to the sale of Chilean salmon-farming firm Australis to Chinese foodservice group Joyvio.
Chilean businessman Isidoro Quiroga sold Australis to Joyvio in 2018 for USD 921 million (EUR 873 million). Following the sale, Joyvio alleged Quiroga engaged in such actions as hiding, falsifying, and adulterating critical information during the sales process, including what the company now deems was deliberate overproduction to inflate salmon-production numbers and, therefore, the company’s valuation when it came time to negotiate a sale.
Joyvio subsequently filed a lawsuit against Quiroga for USD 1.22 billion (EUR 1.16 billion) in restitution and damages and has accused Quiroga and former Australis executives of fraud and unfair administration.
Now, Prosecutor Constanza Encina has asked the Chilean Fourth Court of Guarantee for authorization to review the emails of 11 of the salmon company’s former directors and executives, including Quiroga, his sons Isidoro and Benjamín, the late former general manager Ricardo Misraji, and the former manager of administration and finance Santiago Garretón.
The prosecutor said that both parties have delivered opposing versions on two central axes of the investigation that access to the emails might help clear up: whether Chilean environmental authorities changed criteria to sanction overproduction, and how much the defendants and plaintiffs knew regarding such overproduction.
Encina will review evidence contained in emails and documents received, sent, deleted, filed, and drafted to “account for the information collected in this investigation, as well as [to clarify] the contradictions that have been revealed during the compilation of the background information,” according to the 11-page subpoena request signed by Encina, as reported by newspaper La Tercera.
“In order to verify the facts investigated, it is necessary to make use of the information contained in the emails … even more so when there are opposing versions as to the real information that was available to make [sales] decisions, making the authorization essential,” the Fourth Court of Guarantee said in allowing the subpoena.
According to Joyvio lawyer Alberto Eguiguren, the move “shows the enormous progress [made in] the investigation.”
“The emails will reveal the participation of Isidoro Quiroga, his sons, and former executives in the configuration of the fraud and other crimes committed,” he told La Tercera.
Quiroga's family office, Asesorías e Inversiones Benjamín, said the review will reveal there was no wrongdoing committed during the sale of Australis.
“The prosecutor's office request shows that after more than a year and a half of investigation, the assumptions on which the complaints are based are contradicted,” the office said. “The review of the emails will only confirm that the complaints are unfounded.”
Joyvio’s civil lawsuit against Quiroga in Chile has entered its final stage of arbitration. As part of the final stage, each party’s lawyers are set to join three judges of the arbitration panel for an inspection of Australis’s Dumestre plant, located in the southern city of Puerto Natales.
The judicial visit is outlined in Chile’s Code of Civil Procedure, which in addition to witness accounts, confessions, expert reports, and presumptions, establishes a “personal inspection of the court” as a possible means of gathering evidence to resolve a case. The inspection allows a judge or a panel of judges to form their own impression in relation to the parties’ allegations on a disputed fact.
The inspection of the Dumestre plant relates to sanctioned production dips environmental authorities levied on Australis that aimed to correct accused overproduction under former ownership. Due to the required drop in production, Australis said its Dumestre plant is operating significantly below its capacity of 72,000 metric tons (MT) per year at about 50,000 MT.
The arbitration trial began in Q2 2023, and lawyers from both parties are now expected to present their closing briefs at the beginning of December.
The court then plans to call a conciliation hearing, and the court is then expected to take three to six months to rule on the situation, with a ruling expected mid-2025.
Australis has struggled due to its limited production, and in September to mitigate its financial troublesJoyvio reported to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that it placed 15 Australis farms – valued at USD 138 million (EUR 131 million) – as collateral to suppliers BioMar and Vitapro to improve payment conditions and increase credit limits.
In the meantime, Chile’s Superintendency of the Environment (SMA) has several sanctioning processes pending against Australis for exceeding authorized production limits at several grow-out centers from 2017 through 2021. Sanctions could include fines of several million dollars and closure of the centers in question.
