There was no irregularity in the contract that led RCS, in 2013, to sell the property in Via Solferino, the historic headquarters of Corriere della Sera, to the American fund Blackstone. This is what the Milan Arbitral Tribunal established in response to the dispute initiated by Urbano Cairo, current majority shareholder of RCS, of which he is president and CEO, against the American fund. Thus you reject all RCS claims, including those for compensation. The costs of the proceedings, however, were offset by the parties as the award “was approved by a majority”: Renato Rordorf and Vincenzo Mariconda voted in favor, while Vincenzo Roppo was against.
In the 80-page award, it is said that “it is not allowed (…) to recognize in the behavior of Blackstone (and, for it, of Kryalos) anything that appears unquestionably contrary to (…) the duties of correctness and good faith “. The considerations of the three arbitrators did not “bring to light anything other than the unfolding of a commercial negotiation between performing subjects, promoted by the selling party and in the context of which the buying party has legitimately tried to achieve the most advantageous conditions for it, without any evidence of undue pressure on the counterpart having emerged, as a result of a competitive procedure that (…) it would be arbitrary to consider fictitious ».
There will therefore be no compensation from Blackstone. Rather, the Milanese award restarts the path of the American cause to which the fund has addressed asking for damages in Cairo for the non-transfer of the building to Allianz, blocked by the publisher’s legal initiatives.