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Attached below is the minutes of the union agreement pursuant to Article 47 of Law 428/90 signed by Selfitalia Srl, Bricomax Italia Srl, Fisascat-Cisl, and Uiltucs. Filcams-Cgil reserved the right to sign following an internal review of its organization.
Selfitalia Srl, which employs 611 people (609 office workers and 2 managers), distributed as follows:
has requested – with an appeal filed on 3 November 2017 – the Court of Turin to grant the deadline pursuant to Article 161, 6th paragraph, LF. This article, entitled “Application for composition with creditors”, in the sixth paragraph provides that the entrepreneur can file the appeal containing the application for composition with creditors together with the balance sheets relating to the last three financial years and the list of creditors with the indication of their respective credits, reserving the right to present the proposal, the plan and the other required documentation within a deadline set by the judge, between sixty and one hundred and twenty days and extendable, in the presence of justified reasons, by no more than sixty days, which, in fact, the court has granted until 2 March 2018, appointing the Judicial Commissioner and onsubsequently postponed this deadline to April 30, 2018. On February 20, Selfitalia Srl received an irrevocable offer to lease the business unit (virtually the entire company, including its headquarters) from Bricomax Italia Srl. Selfitalia Srl subsequently accepted the offer, albeit conditional on obtaining the necessary authorizations from the relevant regulatory authorities.
The takeover of the business unit under a lease agreement is necessitated by the critical management situation of Selfitalia Srl, which, with the cash generated, could only guarantee the payment of wages to its employees until the end of this March. However, it would clearly be unable to supply its stores to ensure operational continuity and prevent a transition from insolvency to bankruptcy.
In order to intervene quickly and prevent the loss of company assets and employment, the Turin Court, in a ruling dated February 24, 2018, ordered a competitive tender process based on a call for tenders—also prepared by the Court—to definitively identify the party to whom the lease and subsequent sale will be made (subsequently refers to the period following approval of the composition with creditors; however, the sale may also take place prior to approval if requested by the successful bidder). This process will be held on March 21, 2018.
The conditions for the transfer of the branch provide that:
of subordinate employment, 3) the automatic transfer to Selfitalia of the employees transferred to the successful tenderer/tenant both in the event of a sale to a different party and in the event of failure to approve the contract;
The parties' discussions focused primarily on the issue of the employment debts from which each individual employee would "free" Selfitalia Srl. As Fisascat-Cisl, we requested and obtained that the union declaration form pursuant to Articles 2112 of the Italian Civil Code, 2113 of the Italian Civil Code, and 411 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, include, in addition to the transfer of employment contracts in the event of a negative outcome of the composition procedure, a detailed disclosure of the aforementioned employment debts for the successful tenderer—with a liberating effect for Selfitalia Srl. In our humble opinion, the previous versions submitted by the opposing party only reported, too generically, the condition of the transfer of employment contracts to Selfitalia Srl.
We believe that the upcoming transaction represents a guarantee of business and employment continuity, which is certainly uncommon in similar corporate situations.
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