Ailing Dutch retailer Laurus has become embroiled in further controversy after unions accused its biggest shareholder and supervisory director of blocking the sale of bits of the chain "out of his own desire for profit". A spokesman for Eric Albada Jelgersma, who owns 35% of Laurus stock and holds rental contracts for 130 stores and eight distribution centres, said he was considering suing the FNV Bondgenoten union and the Dienstenbond CNV union over the allegations. He is also threatening legal action over an article in Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad claiming he signed a lucrative side deal to control the rental properties for some Laurus stores without paying upkeep costs. Ron Peters of FNV and Siefko Weert of CNV last week issued a joint statement expressing "major concerns about Jelgersma's share trading integrity", alleging his position as shareholder and board member had generated a conflict of interest. The unions said: "We are worried that if a party expressed interest in taking over Laurus in the near term, Jelgersma will show them the door." The sale of the Basismarkt and Spar stores was intended to generate cash to finance Laurus' restructuring plans. Unions claim Laurus' best chance of survival is to be acquired in its entirety. The company has yet to finalise a deal with banks to secure 500 million euros of new credit and its profit is well below the agreed threshold for securing the new line of credit of three times its total interest burden. Jelgersma described the allegations as "extremely nasty, unjustified, not based on facts and very offensive", and demanded an immediate retraction. Laurus has announced plans to freeze all expenditure on "projects that do not immediately contribute to the success of the different labels in the Netherlands". Projects put on hold include phase two of the planned relocation of 500 head office staff to the Van Nelle Building, the mobile offices' project and also numerous projects related to human resources, IT and marketing. {{NEWS }}