TMT to Appeal Judgment -- Nobu Su Had Taken Off His Chapeau to Mr. Polys-Hajijanou

HONG KONG, Nov. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Nobu Su has spoken out about the latest UK court ruling against his company in the case between TMT and Lakatamia, and has vowed to appeal the judgment. The world wide freezing injunction obtained by Polys-Hajijanou over Nobu Su personal assets since August 2011 has damaged Mr. Su personally and professionally and he is keen to gain back wrongful acts.

The Greek/Cypriot/British shipping tycoon Mr. Polys-Hajijanou who resides in Monaco and owns the single-ship company Lakatamia, recently won a claim of close to USD38 million against TMT chairman Nobu Su and other TMT companies. The case revolved around disputed Forward Freight Agreements ("FFA"). Lakatamia has successfully obtained its full claim amount for USD79 million plus costs even though TMT had already paid USD43million, which it considers as a more than sufficient settlement amount.

Speaking on last Monday, a spokesman for TMT commented that "Mr Su and the TMT companies are surprised and disappointed with Justice Cooke's ruling."TMT's spokesman went on to say: "TMT consider Lakatamia's disclosure, during the proceedings to be inadequate and TMT will seek legal advice on this issue."

TMT's spokesman went on to say: " TMT is hopeful that the Polys-Hajijanou case will be heard in the English Court of Appeal if TMT's appeal is granted, and will have results similar to the Oceanbulk Trading and Shipping case where in 2010, TMT won a leading case in the English Supreme Court against the CEO of Starbulk, Mr. Petros Pappas, about whether without prejudice discussions should be admissible in evidence."

TMT's spokesman stated that according to Nobu Su, the key question to be considered, is whether it should be regarded as corporate liability or personal liability when one billionaire ship owner and another billionaire ship owner enter into USD150 million worth of derivative transactions via only one broker but through separate phone transactions in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis. Both shipowners - Mr. Su and Mr. Polys-Hajijanou - were not trading directly with the broker. Trades were done at both ends by traders working for corporations and the documentation did not mention the shipowners' individual names but that of their companies.

In Nobu Su's opinion, if the recent UK judgment was right, it would mean that NOBODY could trade derivative without the risks of personal liability. He finds it difficult to believe that anybody trading based on an ISDA agreement over an i-phone or a blackberry can be held personally liable, instead of their underlying corporates being liable for the contracts subsequently entered into.

The issue highlighting the demand letter of Royal Bank of Scotland PLC Global Banking & Markets prohibited TMT from trading FFA on August 14, 2008. Therefore, TMT was not allowed to clear LCH trades in the middle of Lehman Shock and RBS nationalization without the instruction in liquidity crunch.