Court annuls the sale of Marbella Arena venue
The transaction was executed while a lease with right of purchase was in force at the former bullring in Puerto Banús
A court in Marbella has ruled in favour of the company that is currently operating the Marbella Arena and has annulled the sale of this venue, announced last June in favour of Félix Ruiz Hernández, the founder of Tuenti, the defunct social media site bought by Telefónica, the current CEO of the sports platform Playtomic and the investors Emilio Rodríguez Quijano and Alexander Villaverde Zweegers.
The business owners acquired 66 per cent of the company that owns the Marbella Arena, called Plaza de Toros de Puerto Banús SA, through the firm Gladiator Project SL. The operation was announced and executed while a lease contract was in force -dating back to August 2018- with the company that currently operates the former Puerto Banús bullring, Leisure & Culture Marbella SL, which also included a right of purchase option that was not respected.
The court "fully" upholds the claim of the company operating the venue, and declared "the breach by Plaza de Toros de Puerto Banús SA of the right of purchase option contained in the lease contract" by "preventing its exercise", and condemns the company to "comply" with what was signed "through the granting of a public deed of sale under the terms set out in the aforementioned contract".
The court ruling, although not final, "unequivocally" ratifies the right to purchase the complex and "constitutes a solid legal backing" for "the contractual position and activity carried out", said Leisure & Culture Marbella, which stresses that the ruling "expressly points out that the defendant is responsible for having repeatedly and deliberately created multiple obstacles to the effective exercise of this right".
Economic loss
The lessee company of the Marbella Arena claims that the information disseminated by the business leaders when announcing the operation has caused "serious damage to its image and solvency" due to its "biased content and lack of veracity". It argued that although anyone can acquire shares in the company that owns the bullring and take control of it, what they would be doing is buying a company that has a lease contract in force with an option to buy.
Leisure & Culture Marbella claims that this "disinformation campaign" resulted in "cancellations of investment operations and reservations of spaces for concerts and other events, at an advanced stage of negotiation". For this reason, the company has initiated legal action for damages, while studying the possibility of filing criminal proceedings "against all those directly or indirectly involved".
The operator of the Marbella Arena has said that it will continue with its activity and that it will announce new events and commercial agreements "shortly", which are to be reactivated after the ruling and which "will contribute, even more, to the positioning of the complex as a cultural and leisure reference on the Costa del Sol", while reaffirming its "commitment to the cultural and business development of the complex".
