An English appeals court reduced the 75 million euro fee that business tycoon Naguib Sawiris was ordered to pay to an adviser on a European acquisition, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The award was to be paid to Italian businessman Alessandro Benedetti, who advised Sawiris on Weather Investments' aquisition of Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA, Italy's third largest mobile operator. The appeals court reduced Benedetti's compensation to 14.5 million euros.
“My family and I are very happy that justice was served and that we can now put this issue to rest,” Sawiris said in a statement released by his law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
In 2007, Benedetti filed a lawsuit against Sawiris for a one-third stake in Weather Investments SpA for the work Benedetti did advising the company on its acquisition strategies. According to the Italian advisor's spokesman, the stake was worth billions.
Weather purchased 63 percent of Wind for 3 billion euros from Enel SpA in a 2005 transaction and took on about 7 billion euros of debt, according to Bloomberg data. In 2006, Weather purchased the remaining stake for 1.96 billion euros.
