Iberdrola just won another decisive battle in the war waged with ACS, its primary shareholder. The Second Commercial Court of Bilbao (Juzgado de lo Mercantil número dos in Spanish) has denied the construction company's challenge to agreements made during Iberdrola's last shareholder meeting. Advisers agreed to a series of reforms that will decrease ACS's voice in managing company issues and allow current Iberdrola management to keep a close watch on its hostile primary shareholder.
According to the sentence, to which elEconomista has had access, the judge did not detect any abuse of power on Iberdrola's part for having reduced the number of advisers on the board, denying voting rights for shareholders with conflicts of interest, controlling how much information some shareholders are allowed to see, interfering with the voting process or granting excessive power to Iberdrola CEO Ignacio Sánchez Galán.
Further, the judge denied the lawsuit because the verdict of an appeal that ACS made against Iberdrola in 2010 is still pending. ACS had previously appealed to the Commercial Court in Bilbao but was forced to appeal to the Audiencia Provincial de Vizcaya. The verdict will be made known in several days. For its part, ACS said it would also appeal yesterday's verdict.