Dutch court blocks OCI vote on Egypt’s Orascom merger

A Dutch court on Monday blocked a vote on the proposed merger between Amsterdam-listed fertilizer maker OCI and Egypt’s Orascom Construction.

The court in Amsterdam said the vote that had been planned for a shareholders’ meeting on January 22 could not take place, and appointed two non-executive board members to weigh if the proposal had been prepared properly.

Dutch shareholders association VEB and OCI shareholder Norbury Capital had taken OCI to court, after it had ignored their pleas last month to scrap the vote.

The disgruntled shareholders said the transaction undervalued OCI, lacked a strategic rationale and had a clear conflict of interest as both companies have the Egyptian Sawiris family as their major shareholder.

The court said there was reason to believe that OCI’s board members had been influenced by controlling shareholder Nassef Sawiris and that the deal disadvantaged minority shareholders of the company.