Co family’s dispute over Green Cross continues

THE SUPREME Court (SC) has allowed businessman Gonzalo Co It to pursue the case he filed against his siblings over ownership of the company behind Green Cross alcohol, which he founded.

In a decision dated Oct. 24, the SC Second Division held that Mr. Co should be able to exhaust legal remedies regarding his personal shares in Gonzalo Laboratories — now known as Green Cross, Inc. — despite noting the petitioner’s earlier withdrawal of his petition for certiorari in 2012.

“Palpably, the interest of substantial justice demand that Gonzalo be allowed to pursue his appeal, reinstatement of the petition is imperative to further thresh out the issues involved therein,” the SC added.

In June 2009, Mr. Co filed a complaint for reconveyance with damages against his siblings Anthony Co, Mary Co Cho, Peter Co; and wife of his deceased brother Joseph Co, Hua Tan Co over ownership of Green Cross.

The petitioner Mr. Co established Gonzalo Laboratories, maker of Green Cross alcohol, in 1952. He is the eldest among five children of Co Ay Tian and Ang Sir. In 1971, he incorporated Gonzalo Laboratories, registering some shares in the names of his mother and siblings.

However, Mr. Co accused the respondents of “taking advantage of their relationship as siblings, deceived Gonzalo into waiving his preemptive rights over the additional subscription thereby reducing his shareholdings to a lone stock.”

Further, Mr. Co held that his siblings “appropriated for themselves alone their parents’ shares in Green Cross to the exclusion of their sibling, Gonzalo.” The siblings also changed the name of the company to Green Cross, Inc.

The lower court dismissed Mr. Co’s complaint on the ground of prescription. The ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Co then sought the SC through certiorari. However, the petitioner subsequently filed a Motion to Withdraw Petition. On Jan. 30, 2012, the SC granted the withdrawal. The resolution was made final and executor on March 8, 2012.

However, in May 2014, the petitioner filed a motion to reinstate petition as he said: “[ Mr. Co] was advised by his lawyers that respondents have decided to reconcile with him in the spirit of Christmas and in consideration of his old age, and to settle the inheritance problem amicably… Accordingly, and upon the instruction and recommendation of his lawyers [Mr. Co] signed his conformity to the motion to withdraw.”

“To the utmost disappointment and disgust of [ Mr. Co], the ‘ long delayed reconciliation by and among blood relatives’ upon which the motion to withdraw was based, never materialized,” the petition further read.

The high court noted that Mr. Co “received the raw end of the deal when his expected reconciliation with his siblings did not materialize.”

“We cannot countenance such as injustice and validate a stance that our approval of a clearly lopsided motion completely precludes [ Mr. Co] from pursuing his legal remedies. In all, [Mr. Co] claims continuing and persistent fraud where the transactions on which the transfer of the shares of the parties’ parents who actually did not own the Green Cross shares in their name, is one for declaration of nullity of shares of stocks in respondents’ names. Thus the action to declare their in existence is imprescriptible,” the SC added.

Mr. Co’s earlier petition is then reinstated, while the Co siblings, impleaded in the case, are ordered to file their comment within 10 days from receipt of the said order.