A local property development company has frozen Lidl Malta cash over a dispute concerning the former Cortis Woodworks site in Żebbuġ.
Central Business Centres (CBC), a sister firm of the Cortis Group, announced on Tuesday that it has frozen an undisclosed amount of Lidl cash deposited in the form of a bank guarantee due to “LIDL’s failure to deliver part of the Żebbuġ site to the company”.
The agreement formed part of an emphyteutical deed signed between the two companies years ago, CBC said. That deed paved the way for Lidl to turn the former woodworks factory into a supermarket – its 11th across Malta and Gozo.
Central Business Centres said that “repeated attempts” to resolve differences between the companies had failed and that it was therefore registering a dispute and freezing funds Lidl provided as a guarantee.
That money will be used to “finance the continuation of the works that LIDL failed to carry out, or that failed to meet the required standards, and to make good for the damages that were and are still being suffered by the company,” it said.
CBC plc owns a number of properties used for commercial, warehousing and retail purposes. The company
Its dispute with Lidl comes days before a €3 million bond it issued a decade ago comes due. Public filings indicate CBC plc must also pay a further €3 million in unsecured callable notes it issued last year. The company has previously said it will be securing new borrowings in tandem to that.
According to the public filings, CBC plc signed its deal with Lidl back in 2017. As part of the deal, Lidl was to build a supermarket on the site while providing an underground level to CBC plc. That underground level was originally forecast to be completed by the end of Q3 2025.
