In JoWooD's letter to shareholders dated 21/11/07, the company publicly admitted that it had no rights to the Stargate License independently of Perception. Ben Lenzo, CEO of Perception stated, "While we're pleased that JoWooD and Dr Seidl have finally admitted that Perception always had the Stargate license and not JoWooD, it is a shame it took over 2 years for them to publicly admit as much. This fact is the key pillar of both our civil and criminal cases against the company and its CEO. It is a clear vindication for Perception."
In response to JoWooD's claims of share price manipulation on the part of Perception and Ben Lenzo, we have been in contact with the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) to discuss these matters specifically. While it is not the first time JoWooD have made the exact same statements in order to distract shareholders, we strenuously deny these false allegations and have made ourselves available to the FMA for any questions they may have at a time of their choosing. On the contrary to JoWooD’s claims, Perception does not wish to see JoWooD’s share price fall, as this could ultimately impact on its ability to make judgement payments to us and others. Having said that, a complete lack of commercial reality on behalf of JoWooD's CEO has forced us to take action. Unlike JoWooD, Perception did not see the need to issue a press release simply to inform the market when it voiced its own concerns to the FMA several weeks ago regarding share trades.
However, we have also recently provided detailed evidence to the FMA on a number of JoWooD related issues:
1) JoWooD is currently facing legal claims against it in excess of EUR 16,000,000. These are cases currently before various courts and do not include other potential legal actions being contemplated by certain parties. One case in particular has seen a partial judgement already handed down against JoWooD. These have not been disclosed to shareholders.
2) Some of these claims date back two years and this material information should have been disclosed to shareholders at that time and in the company reports.
3) JoWooD has no provisions in its accounts for any of these claims.
4) Dr Seidl mislead shareholders as to the rightful ownership of the Stargate License.
This information is all available on public record in Austria and in various jurisdictions, yet Dr Seidl has not seen fit to disclose it to JoWooD shareholders. The harsh reality for shareholders is that an investor looking at JoWooD's public statements and its accounts would reach an entirely different conclusion about the company if they were looking at the exact same information as well as full disclosure of the above claims.
We welcome an FMA investigation into JoWooD so that full disclosure can be made to shareholders based on the evidence provided to it by us. We also welcome the FMA clearing Perception and its CEO of any wrongful action. These matters are extremely serious and even a small judgement against JoWooD would bring into serious doubt its ability to continue operations. The true state of the company is simply not reflected in the accounts or other company statements and it is the obligation of the FMA to see that this is corrected.
Now that the FMA has been informed of this misleading and deceptive conduct, accompanied with 3rd party evidence that is clear and undeniable, we have full confidence that they will immediately conduct a full, swift and thorough investigation into the matter in order to protect JoWooD shareholders and the Austrian Capital Markets as a whole.
