First Superior Tribunal declines jurisdiction over appeal of dividend set-off order
Jul 12 2019
1st Superior Tribunal
The First Superior Tribunal of the First Judicial District declined to hear the appeal that Villamorey, S.A. filed against Order No. 2277-2018 of December 5, 2018, the ruling in the Ordinary Lawsuit of High Value (Case No. 556-99) in which the Eleventh Circuit Civil Court denied Villamorey's request to auction Lisa, S.A.'s shares in the Guatemalan subsidiaries of the Avícola Villalobos group and ordered the $894,718.00 judgment satisfied by set-off against dividends that Villamorey, S.A. had retained as judicial depositary since 2008.
The tribunal identified sua sponte that the challenged resolution was not subject to appeal. Under Panama's procedural system, ordinary appeals lie only against resolutions expressly enumerated in Article 1131 of the Judicial Code, a framework known as numerus clausus. The tribunal determined that a resolution denying an auction request, ordering payment by set-off against retained dividends, and directing a communication to another circuit court does not appear in that exhaustive catalog. Although the Eleventh Circuit Court granted the appeal at first instance, it should not have been admitted.
"De la actuación que surge en autos, es ostensible que la resolución que niega la solicitud de fijar fecha de remate; que ordena el pago de la ejecución de sentencia; y, que ordena una comunicación a otro Juzgado de Circuito de lo Civil del Primer Circuito Judicial de Panamá, no está incluida en el catálogo de resoluciones que permiten ser apeladas." (Page 2)
Order No. 2277-2018 remained undisturbed. This inhibition constituted the first appellate-level confirmation of the dividend set-off order. Villamorey, S.A. subsequently pursued its next avenue of challenge through a constitutional amparo action before the Plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice, which was also denied unanimously on June 24, 2020.