Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, said “earlier this month, the North Bangkok Municipal Court dismissed the criminal fraud case brought by J Trust Asia PTE (“JTA”) against the Company and former Directors, Mitsuji Konoshita and Mueno Tashiro. The case was dismissed because JTA’s complaint lacks prima-facie merits, meaning that the case is not well-grounded. We are pleased to report that we just found out that the courts even refused to allow JTA’s appeal against factual issues in regards to this case. ”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated, “this means the Company and former Directors are not guilty of the criminal charge of fraud. Therefore, it is factually final that the Company did not deceive JTA and the Thai courts are so convinced of this fact that they did not even allow JTA the opportunity to appeal. We continue to believe that this decision will foreshadow the court’s decision next year in our main legal case with JTA that its investments into GL could not be voidable, since it is now confirmed by Thai courts that there was no fraud committed by GL or its former Directors.  Also we believe these series of decisions would effect positively for us in many other cases world-wide against JTA including our respective claims for compensation and damages caused by JTA’s unreasonable legal actions with the amounts of 685,000,000 THB, 9,130,000,000 THB and 644,581,997.24 THB which are now on process in Thai courts. (Total 10,459,580,000 THB equivalent to roughly around 302.5 million USD)  

We appreciate our shareholders during these times. We continue to work for your benefit and we continue to achieve the best results we can in the legal system. We will continue to demand compensation for the damages they have caused the Company over these years.”

 

For more information, please contact

Sutisa Trikisyasopon / Amonchai Udomphot

Siam PR Consultant Co., Ltd.                                                   

Tel. 0-2693-7835 Ext. 25 / 21                                                                                       

Mobile. 098-996-2454 / 081-720-4573

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, revealed “on 8 February 2023, the Bangkok North Municipal Court had a hearing for pronouncement of the order of the criminal fraud case brought by J Trust Asia Pte. Ltd. (“JTA”) against the Company and former Directors, Mitsuji Konoshita and Muneo Tashiro. We are pleased to report that the court dismissed the case based on the reasoning that JTA’s complaint is not well-grounded which legally is called having no prima-facie merits. The court looked at and decided that because JTA’s investments in GL were made voluntarily and that JTA is a large and experienced investment company, then JTA should have known what was investing into when entering the investment agreements with GL. I believe the court considered that the investment by JTA should be considered under ‘the Principle of Self-Responsibility.’ As such, GL and our former Directors are not guilty of the criminal charge of fraud.”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated, “this is the same allegation as the case that JTA had brought to the Department of Special Investigation (“DSI”) and the DSI had subsequently issued a final non-prosecute order against GL and our former Directors. We are glad that both the DSI and the court came to the same conclusion that GL did not defraud JTA when JTA decided to invest into GL. We believe that this decision will foreshadow the court’s decision next year in our main legal case with JTA that its investments into GL could not be voidable, since there was no fraud committed by GL and its former Directors. 

We appreciate our shareholders during these times, we will come out stronger from this. We will continue to fight JTA and demand compensation for the damages they have caused our shareholders over these years.”

 

For more information, please contact

Sutisa Trikisyasopon / Amonchai Udomphot  

Siam PR Consultant Co., Ltd.                                             

Tel. 0-2693-7835 Ext. 21                                          

Mobile. 098-996-2454 / 081-720-4573

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited said “It is a good news for GL at all. In general, the Supreme Court rejects the vast majority of applications for leave of final appeal to the Supreme Court. The fact that the Supreme Court reviewed our application for leave of final appeal (along with the final appeal) and decided to grant us the leave of final appeal shows that the Supreme Court believes that there are critical issues that the Supreme Court wants to hear so that they may make a final judgement. The Supreme Court needed to hear our case first if they wanted to reverse the Appeal Court’s decision, so we are optimistic about our chances given that if they felt JTA’s arguments were correct, the Supreme Court could have just rejected our leave of final appeal and made the issue final that way.

On March 5, 2020, the Civil Court in Thailand ruled that that JTA acted in bad faith by filing the false rehabilitation petition against Group Lease in Thailand. The Court also ruled that JTA’s actions caused damages and ordered JTA to pay THB 685 million, including lawyer fees, to GL. After that judgement, JTA appealed and the Appeal Court ruled in their favor and concluded that JTA no longer needed to pay GL. We agreed with the Court of First Instance’s judgement and therefore GL applied for leave of final appeal to the Supreme Court for a final decision.

We are proud to share that the Supreme Court has granted us our leave of final appeal and will hear our case. This is a good chance for GL to get compensation from JTA for the damages which JTA had unlawfully caused from its world-wide litigation. Additionally, this Supreme Court order would give good influence on other ongoing litigations, including the second civil case that GL filed against JTA et al for compensation in the amount of THB 9,130 million and a criminal case against JTA and the directors which GL had initiated and has been working on now”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, commented “Originally, GL took civil action against JTA due to JTA’s unjustified attempt to force GL into rehabilitation, even though it is so clear GL does not meet the standards for rehabilitation. On August 15, 2019, the Central Bankruptcy Court dismissed the JTA submitted rehabilitation petition against GL for the second time. The court looked at three factors when deciding to dismiss the case:

1. The amount of GL debt owed to JTA
2. The amount of GL’s assets compared to GL’s liabilities
3. The ability of GL to operate the business

Upon looking at those three factors, the court ruled that the amount that JTA claimed that GL owes JTA is unclear due JTA’s legal actions, GL has assets exceeding its liabilities and therefore is not insolvent, and finally that GL was able to operate the business as usual and therefore dismissed JTA’s petition.

We are pleased the Supreme Court has granted us our leave of final appeal and will hear our case. We appreciate all of our shareholders’ patience during this time and we will continue to fight for our shareholders.”

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, revealed “on 4 August 2022, we published our 2020 financial statement delaying 1 and half years. This statement has been delayed as we tried to resolve some issues but now, we have reached a point where we need to inform the public about GL’s performance. 2020 was a tough year due to Covid-19 and mainly an unfavorable court judgement in Singapore. In Singapore, the Court of Appeals found our Singapore subsidiary liable for roughly $71 million, of which we have already paid in full during 2021. The judgement increased our expenses by roughly $21 million in 2020 as the remainder of the judgement was merely an order to repay our existing $50 million CD with JTA.

We will try to get GL on track to trade on the SET again as soon as possible by disclosing our financial statement of 2021 and 2022. We can state that internally we always complete our accounting on time and we are ready to be audited for the years 2021 and 2022. We promise we will be keen to submit anything that will make our auditors to be satisfied. To resume trading of our stock, we need to catch up the disclosure of Financial Statement on time for 2 consequent quarters. We will work on 2021 and 2022 financial statement disclosure as hard as possible.”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated, “we received the same disclaimer of conclusion from our auditor as we did for 3Q2020. The most important reason from GL for the disclaimer is that KPMG did not get enough satisfactory explanations or evidence in their view for some issues. GL tried it’s best to provide KPMG with as much information as possible and we provided them with many and all documents and items in our possession. We admit there is some information that both KPMG and GL would like to have, but due to circumstances out of our control, both GL and KPMG were unable to get all information requested. Like 3Q2020, rather than wait until we can obtain all information and get a clean opinion from KPMG, we felt it was important for the public to get an update on the performance of the company and for GL to work on being able to trade again on the SET, so we decided to publish financial statement for 2020 knowing that we still have issues to resolve.

KPMG also referred to uncertainly in our legal cases. As stated many times, the legal cases will remain uncertain until the courts decide on the litigation between us and JTA. We will continue to fight JTA the best we can and we remain confident that once the Thai civil case goes to trial, GL will win. We appreciate our shareholders during these times, we will come out stronger from this.

The company had gone through very tough years in 2020 and 2021 under COVID-19 pandemic and as everyone knows the political situation in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and significantly weak local currency in Laos, Myanmar and Sri Lanka had been serious issues for our operations in each country even in 2022. So the result in 2021 which we are going to catch up and release in near future won’t be greatest. However, in 2022 we have already closed our operation in Indonesia which was a negative driver of us because GLF Indonesia was a joint venture with JTrust Group, which is our litigation counter party, so that it won’t have future issues anymore there. Also, in Cambodia and Thailand the companies started to re-expand our business, both of which would be the growth drivers of GL in 2022.”

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, revealed “back on 11 April 2018, GL filed criminal charges against JTA and 2 JTA Directors: Nobuyoshi Fujisawa and Shigeyoshi Asano (now former Director of JTA), for jointly submitting a petition for business rehabilitation against GL, which falsely claimed that GL falls under the requirements for business rehabilitation. This caused GL to incur reputational damage and lose credibility amongst investors, which negatively affected the value of the shares of the Company. Recently, on 22 December 2021, the Supreme Court of Thailand gave a favorable result to GL when it denied JTA’s application to review the rehabilitation case brought forward by JTA. There is no more appeal for JTA about this and it’s final. We are happy that we can move on and show that JTA’s claim that GL falls under the business rehabilitation state was groundless, and this will give more assurances to the Company’s investors and stakeholders on the Company’s status.”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated, “while we are happy the Supreme Court ended this saga about GL being rehabilitated, JTA, Nobuyoshi Fujisawa and Shigeyoshi Asano committed criminal acts in our view based on Section 90/80 of the Bankruptcy Act, 1940.  They submitted a false rehabilitation claim to the Bankruptcy Court about GL. The case has been temporarily struck out pending the final judgment of the rehabilitation case. Therefore, on 30 December 2021, GL asked the Central Bankruptcy Court to resume the criminal case against them. The Court has set an appointment to consider the resume of the proceeding on 14 February 2022. Punishment for their crime if this case is successful could be up to THB 300,000 and/or up to 3 years of prison and we will seek justice for our shareholders by chasing JTA and their Directors individually to make them compensate for the loss they created for GL and our shareholders and also make them face the consequences of their actions in criminal cases. In Thailand, it is the Central Bankruptcy Court which hears criminal complaints regarding false rehabilitation claims. This is the same court which ruled in GL’s favor that GL does not fall under the requirements for business rehabilitation.  

Additionally, I want to add that GL still has an active civil claim against JTA for THB 9.13 billion due to damage they caused GL and GL’s shareholders and we are appealing a Court of Appeals decision which took away THB 685.5 million that the Court originally awarded GL due to JTA’s harmful bankruptcy court actions. In our Supreme Court Appeal for the THB 685.5 million, we will include the Supreme Court’s rejection of JTA’s business rehabilitation appeal.