Court blocks proposed purchase of WP shares after complaint

Minority shareholders and one of the management board members of the most popular Internet portal Wirtualna Polska (WP) together blocked the dev elopment and financing of the company without any justified reason, claims TP Internet (TPI) a subsidiary of Telekomunikacja Polska SA. "TPI wants to cheat us instead of allowing us to develop the portal by launching an ISP portal, which is the most effective model of business for this kind of activity," said the minority stakeholders. The conflict began when TPI announced its plans to buy the shares from the minority shareholders for a price lower than they would receive on the agreed date in two years time. The conflict got worse on August 8, when the go ahead to increase the share capital of WP by about zł. 48 million was voted through. Two of the minority shareholders protested against the decision in Court, which then blocked the decision. "We will merge WP with TPI, but only after settling disagreements with the minority shareholders," said Yann Gontard, president of TPI. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 6) M.M.