Louis blocks Aegean I auction

The Piraeus Court issued a court order against Dolphin Hellas, a company with which Louis Cruise Lines (LUI) had signed an agreement in February 2005 to acquire the ship Aegean I at a consideration price of EUR 4.5 mln.

LUI said that the agreement was initiated by its subsidiary Progress and at the time LUI had paid EUR 500.000 to lock the deal. The owner of Dolphin, Anargiros Angelopoulos was allowed a 25% stake in Progress.

Louis Cruise Lines announced that after the deal was approved by the Greek Competition Commission in September 2005, and contrary to the original arrangement, Dolphin failed to deliver the ship to Louis by October 2005.

In the meantime, the LUI announcement said, a foreign company owned by Greek multimillionaire Kokallis proceeded to buy the debt of Dolphin from Piraeus Bank and took measures to auction the Aegean I.

“In order to block this, Louis applied to the Greek courts and won approval to stop the auction process,” the Louis announcement said.

With the same court action, the assets of Dolphin have been frozen, as well as those of the Angelopoulos family (father plus two sons) for up to EUR 8 mln to cover Progress from other possible damages.

The Financial Mirror has been unable to secure a counter statement from Dolphin.