the commercial court cancels the takeover of Alpine Aluminum
It is a rare decision pronounced this Friday by the Commercial Court of Annecy: the takeover of the industrial site of Alpine Aluminum by the group of Frank Supplisson, validated by this same court in December 2019, is canceled.
The Annecy commercial court therefore followed the requisitions of the Annecy public prosecutor’s office and pronounced, this Friday, September 30, 2022, the cancellation of the project to take over the industrial site of Alpine Aluminum by Samfy-Invest and the Industry group of Franck Supplisson, but validated by this same court in December 2019. The decision was announced around 2 p.m.
It is a rare decision, as was the request requested by the employees and their lawyer, Me Thierry Billet, who had seized the Annecy prosecutor’s office, considering that the buyer “did not respect its commitments”.
The Cran-Gevrier (Haute-Savoie) company had been sold to Samfy-Invest and the Industry group in December 2019. The buyers had notably undertaken to take over 49 of the 85 employees.
But last May, “only one employment contract out of the 49” persisted, indicated the prosecution which had required the “resolution of the disposal plan” of Alpine Aluminum, that is to say the cancellation of the sale of the factory.
Other engagement”swept away“According to the prosecution, the promise to maintain the original activity on the site. However, according to the preliminary investigation, it turned out that Frank Supplisson was considering selling the site to start-ups.
The court therefore followed the requisitions in its deliberations delivered on Friday at the start of the afternoon. Frank Supplisson’s group has the possibility of appealing this judgment.
The Alpine Aluminum factory, specializing in the transformation of aluminium, is a historic industrial site in Cran-Grevrier, a descendant of the Forges de Crans, which date back to the 18th century.
The buyer of companies in difficulty Frank Supplisson was indicted for “abuse of corporate assets” in the context of the takeover of the steel group Ascométal in 2014. In Annecy, he had already been sued by former employees of Alpine Aluminum “for defrauding the law”.