A Regional Trial Court in Batangas has sided with Absolut Distillers, a subsidiary of the LT Group [LTG 8.35 1.46%] [link], in a dispute over P157 million in unpaid debts owed by Dennis Uy’s Phoenix Petroleum [PNX 9.39].
The court issued a writ of preliminary attachment against PNX, placing PNX’s bank accounts with depository banks under the official custody of a judicial executive officer, and freezing the accounts as “a security for whatever award that the court may issue in favor of Absolut Distillers”.
The LTG company said that PNX has “failed to settle despite numerous demands”.
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In the legal world, remedies like this are quite exceptional.
It’s not a normal thing for a court to freeze accounts to make sure that a debt is paid, and rightfully so.
This is an extremely disruptive procedure that is reserved for times when all regular means for settling a debt have already been tried to no avail.
Having courts facilitate debt disputes between corporations is completely ordinary, but results like this are not part of the regular course of business.
It doesn’t usually get to this point.
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