A Nicosia District Court has issued a temporary injunction order, freezing the assets of Lycourgos Kyprianou in Cyprus and abroad last Thursday.
The injunction request was made by Joseph Lasala and Fred Zeidman who are representing the interests of 6.000 former shareholders of the US-based AremisSoft Corp., who accuse Kyprianou of falsifying the accounts and projected earnings of AremisSoft, which at the time was listed on the NASDAQ.
The interim order also affects other people closely associated with Lycourgos. The persons whose assets have also been frozen as a result of the injunction order are Ermioni Kyprianou (wife of Lycourgos), his auditor/accountants Pavlos Meletiou as well as the bank accounts of seven companies directly or indirectly associated with Lycourgos. They are King Mazaz Lines Ltd., Semark Consultancy Services Ltd., Aremis Holdings Ltd., Aremis Technology Ventures Ltd., Sincock Holdings Corporation., Southwest Management Ltd., and Palantine Asset Management Ltd.
With the temporary injunction order, the transactions of Lycourgos with the CSE listed Global Consolidator, formerly Globalsoft, where he is the Chairman and CEO are also frozen. Global Consolidator has also been requested to present a full statement of all dealings with Lycourgos and third parties.
The temporary injunction order however, does not affect the normal operations of the company.
MASSIVE CHARGES
US authorities have charged Kyprianou, among other things, with securities fraud and money laundering and are treating him as a fugitive after he refused to return and face the charges.
The lawsuit, filed through the law firm of former Attorney General Alecos Markides calls on all financial institutions in Cyprus and abroad to freeze the assets of Lycourgos to the tune of USD 500 mln or CYP 236 mln until the case has been studied and tried.
Kyprianou, who currently lives in Cyprus, and joint CEO Roys Poyiadjis are suspected of making well over USD 300 mln in secret sales of AREM stock while the company was reporting artificially inflated revenues, mostly related to bogus operations in Bulgaria.
In April Poyiadjis returned USD 200 mln to the Liquidating Trust as part of a settlement deal. It is believed that he also provided US authorities with information that would help them trace the money made by Kyprianou through the sale of AremisSoft shares.
According to documents submitted to the court on Friday, AremisSoft reported false revenues and announced multi-million dollar acquisitions of software companies with substantial revenues when in reality the companies were insignificant with small revenues.
