Federico “Piki” Lopez has intensified the legal battle within the Lopez family by filing a new petition for indirect contempt against relatives and affiliated firms, alleging they violated a court injunction by blocking a major hydropower transaction involving First Gen Corp.
The petition, submitted to the Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court on May 29, targets several individuals and entities, including Rafael Lopez, Miguel Ernesto Lopez, Eugenio Lopez III, Martin Lopez, Maria Eugenia Brown, Creme Investment Corp., Presta Holdings Co. Inc., Mantes Corp., Roberta Pilar Feliciano, Maria Margarita Lichauco, and Jorge Lichauco.
This marks the latest chapter in a family dispute that began when the Lopez Inc. board voted on February 27 to remove Piki as president, replacing him with Rafael. Piki challenged the decision in court, and Branch 209 of the Mandaluyong RTC issued a temporary restraining order, later upgraded to a writ of preliminary injunction, blocking the board resolution pending the case.
In the new filing, Piki claims the respondents violated the injunction through letters dated May 18, 23, and 25, which sought to delay or prevent the approval, ratification, or implementation of actions taken by First Gen and its management concerning a transaction with Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc.
“Their acts were not isolated, independent or accidental. They were successive, coordinated, and directed toward the same objective: to prevent or undermine the recognition, ratification, approval and implementation of First Gen’s approved corporate action involving the Prime Infrastructure Transaction,” Piki said in his petition.
He argued that the respondents leveraged their positions as majority shareholders and directors in the Lopez group to pressure corporate officers and directors into rejecting or withholding approval of actions already sanctioned by the First Gen board.
The petition notes that the Prime Infrastructure transaction was unanimously approved by First Gen’s board on February 13. It was also a topic during the February 27 Lopez Inc. board meeting, where the decision to remove Piki was made.
Piki further alleged that the letters were an attempt to indirectly achieve what the court’s injunction prohibited them from doing directly.