The Supreme Court has ruled on the ownership of Stradcom Corp., putting to rest the intra-corporate dispute that saw two warring factions claim leadership of the company’s management team.
In a decision handed down last June 8, the high court ruled that Cezar T. Quiambao, current Stradcom chair, is the real owner of Strategic Development Alliance Corp. (Stradec). Stradec is the biggest single shareholder in Stradcom.
The court also ruled that the group of businessmen Bonifacio Sumbilla and Aderito Yujuico group had no authority to represent the company.
The tribunal upheld the earlier ruling of the Regional Trial Court Branch 155 of Pasig City which ruled in favor of Quiambao, declaring him and his group as the ‘‘lawful and valid representative of Stradec.”
The RTC decision upheld by the Supreme Court “should now be considered the law of the case,” Quiambao said in a press statement on Wednesday.
“The Sumbilla group keeps insisting that they are the real owners of Stradec but the Supreme Court has already ruled that I am the owner of Stradec and therefore the Sumbilla group cannot claim ownership of Stradcom. The matter should be considered closed,” Quiambao said.
Stradcom Corp. is the controversial exclusive information technology provider of the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
Quiambao said Sumbilla and Yujuico had illegally held a board meeting for Stradec, which they used to claim ownership of Stradec.
Sumbilla and Yujuico are now trying to illegally claim ownership of Stradcom Corp., Quiambao said, “by presenting a falsified General Information Sheet to the LTO Chief Virginia Torres which she used as a basis to file an interpleader case and validate her unjust refusal to pay Stradcom.”
A Quezon City court earlier this month upheld Torres’ decision to withhold payments to Stradcom. The court, however, ordered the LTO to deposit the money owed Stradcom in the court’s custody for safekeeping.
The money, about P1.2 billion, which is being fought over by two rival claimants to Stradcom, is now deposited in an escrow account at the Land Bank of the Philippines.
The dispute between the two factions came to a head last year when the Sumbilla group forcibly took over the Stradcom offices in the LTO compound in Quezon City, disrupting LTO operations nationwide for several hours.
The dispute, and the reported disagreements with Malacañang on what to do to Torres because of the way she handled the issue, has been linked to the resignation of Department of Transportation and Communications Secretary Jose de Jesus.