A minority shareholder of a company in the hotel industry demanded that the control holder purchase his shares due to his oppression in 2017 and that the purchase will be at a higher value prior to the Covid-19 epidemic that erupted in 2020 and affected the hotel industry.
The Court held that for the purchase of the shares the value of the company and the shares of the acquired party should be assessed without taking into account the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic that occurred after the date of the dispute. Generally, at the purchase of company shares by one shareholder from the other due to oppression, the company's value and the value of its shares for such purchase are assessed as at the date of oppression of the shareholder, the date of filing a claim, or a date in between. Here, the dispute arose in mid-2017, long before the restrictions on the hotel industry due to the covid-19 pandemic came into effect in 2020, so that at such date the impact of Covid-19 on the hotel industry could not have been anticipated. Therefore, the value of the company is to be estimated without taking the Covid-19 pandemic into account.