Mirae Asset Global Investments won a complete victory in the lawsuit to return the deposit for the International Finance Center (IFC) in Yeouido, Seoul.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 13th, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) sided with Mirae Asset Global Investments that day in the lawsuit over the return of the IFC deposit. With this ruling, Mirae Asset Global Investments was confirmed to have won the case outright.
SIAC accepted Mirae Asset Global Investments' claims in the IFC deposit return dispute with Canada's Brookfield Asset Management. SIAC also ordered Brookfield Asset Management to return the entire 200 billion won performance bond (deposit) for breach of contractual obligations, and to compensate all delayed interest and arbitration-related expense.
Earlier, in 2021, Brookfield selected Mirae Asset Global Investments as the preferred bidder for the sale of the IFC. At the time, Mirae Asset Global Investments offered 4.1 trillion won as the acquisition price and created "Mirae Asset Sage REITs" to raise 700 billion won of that amount.
However, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport did not grant a business license on the grounds that the REITs' loan ratio was excessively high. When it became difficult for Mirae Asset Global Investments to carry out the acquisition, Brookfield terminated the contract.
Since then, the two companies have been in dispute over the return of the 200 billion won performance bond that Mirae Asset Global Investments paid in advance. Mirae Asset Global Investments argued that, because the ministry refused to grant a business license, it was inevitably unable to complete the acquisition and therefore the entire deposit should be returned.
In contrast, Brookfield maintained that Mirae Asset did not use its "best efforts" to obtain the REITs' business license, so the performance bond could not be returned.