Thai lawsuit fails to free prince's impounded Boeing 737

Jul 15, 2011, 17:59 GMT

Berlin - A bid for a German court injunction to release the impounded jet of Thai crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn failed Friday.

The prince, who often pilots the Boeing 737 himself, is a frequent visitor to Munich, where the plane has been grounded by a writ in a dispute between a German building company and the Thai government.

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya was due to meet a state minister at the German Foreign Ministry, Cornelia Pieper, as Bangkok pulled out all the stops to help the prince retrieve his plane.

On Monday, a German court ordered the plane's seizure at Munich airport in a row between an insolvent German construction company, Walter Bau AG, and the Thai government. Walter said the jet was Thai government property.

A court declined to issue an injunction to free the plane.Judge Christoph Fellner said the court was not fully convinced the plane was the prince's personal property as asserted by the lawyer for Thailand.

Werner Schneider, the insolvency administrator of Walter Bau, called the decision a victory.

He said his objective was to force the Thai government to pay out a settlement, as ordered by arbitrators.

He had urged Bangkok to offer a cash bond in place of the jet, but this was refused.

'This attitude surprised us, because we were willing to cut a deal,' he said. The court is to sit again on the case next week.

Schneider appealed to the German government to back his claim and exercise influence on Bangkok, adding that the two nations had a treaty to protect one another's investments.

Bangkok expressed concern when the crown prince's Boeing was confiscated. Kasit called the impounding a 'huge mistake' and said that the issue threatened to damage Thai-German relations, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.

In the 1990s, Walter Bau was part of a joint venture to construct a toll road near Bangkok. A row erupted over the tolls to be levied, as a result of which the German construction company said contractual obligations were not being met.

After years of negotiations, an international tribunal in Geneva awarded Walter Bau 42 million dollars in compensation, an award the Thai government rejected.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said the matter stemmed from a mistaken belief that the plane was the property of the Thai government when it in fact belonged to the crown prince.

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