Citigroup Inc has narrowed the list of defendants in a forklift financing dispute pending in the US District Court in Memphis.

In a September 11 court filing, three commercial financing units of New York-based Citigroup deleted five defendants from the lawsuit without prejudice.

Toyota Material Handling USA Inc (TMHU), Toyota Financial Services Americas Corp, Lilly Co, of Memphis, BancorpSouth Bank, of Tupelo, Mississippi, and SouthTrust Bank, of Birmingham, Alabama, were dismissed as defendants.

The remaining defendants are CTK Inc, four related CTK businesses, controlling CTK shareholder Bernard Panchikal, a related rental business, and CTK employee George Terrell.

CTK has operated as Lift X Technology, ToyotaLift South, CTK Services LLC and Equipment Engineering Co and, through Mr Panchikal, Lift Truck Service & Rentals.

Forklift distributor TMHU, of Irvine, California, terminated Memphis-based CTK as a Toyota dealer six weeks ago in the culmination of a frayed relationship.

"TMHU and CTK had discussions in January regarding the status of the dealership, and the decision to terminate was not made until shortly before the actual August 1, 2003, termination date," said TMHU general counsel Ronald Roensch.

Plaintiffs CitiCapital Commercial Corp and CitiCapital Equipment Leasing Corp, both of Irving, Texas, and Citicorp Del-lease Inc, of Harrison, New York, filed the federal lawsuit in Memphis on August 18 (Forkliftaction.com News #122).