Campeau Files Complaint Over Sales Price of Units Sold to May

Campeau Corp. said Wednesday that it has filed a complaint against May Department Stores Co. over a disagreement related to May’s purchase of Filene’s and Foley’s from Campeau’s Federated Department Stores Inc. division.

The complaint, filed by Campeau and Federated in U.S. District Court in New York, seeks a judgment on whether the purchase agreement between the retailers provides for certain adjustments in the amount of money May paid for Boston-based Filene’s and Houston-based Foley’s department stores.

Campeau, a Toronto company that has real estate and retail holdings including strings of department stores in the United States, said the amount of the adjustments in dispute is about $47 million.

Campeau said May has until May 18 to respond to the complaint, which was disclosed in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was filed in the Manhattan court April 20.

A spokesman at May’s headquarters in St. Louis said the company was disappointed that Campeau and Federated filed the complaint instead of seeking a solution to their disagreement through arbitration.

“We previously advised Campeau of the need for arbitration of our mutual disagreements in the purchase price adjustments both for the Foley’s and Filene’s transactions,” the spokesman said.