Former owner of CM Chiloé sues Mainstream and Ewos

Christian Pérez A year ago, Mainstream bought CM Chiloé to Mr. Lopez
 in US$ 115 million. Now, the former owner of CM Chiloé asks for an US$ 85 million compensatory payment claiming that the purchase negotiations were conducted in "bad faith" and under conflict of interest. Moreover, sources near to Mr. López explain that this company was valued by the financial consulting firm Celfin Capital -currently BTG, in over US$ 200 million. According to those sources, Ewos -as the main fish feed supplier of CM Chiloé, would have exerted undue pressure in favor of Mainstream during the negotiation period, threatening to sue the payment of a US$ 5 million debt which eventually would have triggered the bankruptcy of the Chilean company. High executives of Ewos have assured that they have not been notified of any claim, the financial journal Diario Financiero reports. "Both, the pretrial measure and potential future demand lack of any legal and factual basis," says the Mainstream Chile attorney, Matias Ovalle, and stresses that the company never acted in bad faith, according to the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio. Other sources close to these firms report that Ewos supported CM Chiloé when it had payment problems, and did not cut off the fish feed supply and even delivered fish feed for several months, although Mr. Lopez was not paying. "It seems strange that now we are the bad guys and not the person that did not meet his payments on time," a source close to the Norwegian company says.