Summary

Since 2017, several companies within the Avícola Villalobos Group have filed lawsuits in Guatemalan civil courts seeking to extinguish Lisa, S.A.’s rights to collect dividends. These claims were based on the argument that more than five years had passed since the dividends were declared, and thus the obligations had expired under Guatemala’s civil-law prescription rules. The companies—such as Reproductores Avícolas, Las Margaritas, Compraventa, and Avícola Villalobos—tried to use Lisa’s alleged inaction as grounds to deny its shareholder rights.

Lisa, S.A. consistently argued that the prescriptive period never began because the companies never specified when and how the dividends would be paid—making the obligations unenforceable. In many cases, Lisa also demonstrated that it had taken judicial and extrajudicial actions, such as demand letters or court filings, which interrupted the prescriptive period. Several rulings also noted that Lisa’s ability to collect dividends had been blocked by embargoes and legal maneuvers initiated by the very companies claiming that the time limit had passed.

The Guatemalan courts have overwhelmingly sided with Lisa, rejecting nearly every attempt to invalidate its rights through prescription. Judges concluded that the companies failed to prove the enforceability of the debt and, in some cases, abused the judicial process by filing repetitive or procedurally improper lawsuits. These rulings have reinforced the principle that shareholders cannot lose declared dividends merely through inaction—especially when corporate conduct or legal obstacles have prevented payment.