"Bloomberg" reports that Chagit Sofiev-Leviev, the daughter of Lev Leviev, is at the center of a US lawsuit over Taly Diamonds LLC, in which she owns a 50% stake. Chagit Leviev, 27, appointed CEO AFI USA Inc. the American arm of Africa-Israel Investments Ltd. (TASE:AFIL) in August, is unfairly trying to take control of liquidating Taly as president of partner LGC USA Holdings Inc., according to a Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit filed yesterday in Wilmington.
"Bloomberg" says, "Through LGC, Chagit Leviev is 'seeking to extract undeserved consideration from Taly,' which has thousands of diamonds, through a 'fire sale,' according to the complaint against LGC by Taly and its manager, Yaron Turgeman. Taly alleges Chagit Leviev interfered with the business by demanding that she sign all business checks, and that she wrongly raised suspicions that someone was seen sneaking down a back stairway with a 'large brown paper bag,' when it was only an office manager taking checks to a company bookkeeper."
Taly is seeking a court injunction to allow it to control the wind-down of the business, and to exclude LGC from the process
Leviev Group stated in response, "A few days ago, the Leviev Group, through LGC USA Holdings and its president, Chagit Sofiev-Leviev, petitioned a court in New York for temporary relief against a company she jointly owns in a business partnership with Mr. Yaron Turgeman in the diamond industry in New York, as part of the liquidation of the joint company.
"Last Monday, in view of the evidence supplied by the Leviev Group against Turgeman, which shows that his aides were destroying and removing evidence from the company's offices and carrying out suspicious activity at the company's office and in its computers, while the office was closed, the court ordered, among other things, the replacement of the locks at the company's office and forbade Turgeman and his aides from entering without an escort from the Leviev Group.
"In response to the court decision, Turgeman filed various motions with the Delaware Chancery Court for an injunction against this temporary relief, and is trying to depict a non-existent reality. It is superfluous to say that these motions were dismissed!!!
"The Leviev Group trusts the Israeli and US legal system and is confident that justice will be done."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 2, 2014
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