EssilorLuxottica and Delfin Sign Settlement Agreement to Solve Governance Issues

Monday, May 13 2019 | 10 h 56 min | News

EssilorLuxottica announced that EssilorLuxottica and Deflin S.à.r.l. agreed upon a settlement agreement to overcome the governance issues and set the basis for a renewed start of profound collaboration between Essilor and Luxottica. The agreement settles any existing dispute among the parties.

The Board of Directors of EssilorLuxottica unanimously supported and approved this agreement aimed at immediately making the Group’s structure more efficient and effective from an operational standpoint.

The equal-powers governance, set forth in the Combination Agreement and the Board Rules, is remaining in place until the date of the shareholders’ general meeting to be called in 2021 to approve the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020.

According to the agreement, Leonardo Del Vecchio and Hubert Sagnières empowered Francesco Milleri (Deputy Chairman – CEO of Luxottica Group) and Laurent Vacherot (CEO of Essilor International) with the responsibility to develop and implement the EssilorLuxottica strategy and integration process, accelerating the simplification of the new Group by integrating the two operating companies within the next 12 to 24 months. The Board also confirmed the search for a new CEO.

As a result of this agreement, all existing claims will be waived and legal proceedings will be terminated, including the request for arbitration filed by Delfin before the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce on March 27, 2019.

In light of this agreement, Valoptec decided that it will withdraw the proposal submitted on April 18, 2019 for the appointment, at the Shareholders’ Meeting convened for May 16, 2019, of one additional Director of EssilorLuxottica and will vote against the proposals submitted by certain institutional investors for the appointment of two additional Directors.

As previously stated, the Board recommends that the shareholders vote against all the remaining proposed additional resolutions which, if approved, would result in a clear breach of the Combination Agreement and in a potential disruption for the activities of the Board.

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