AUDIT OF DEMOULAS ASSETS ORDERED

BOSTON -- A Superior Court judge here has ordered that all assets of the Demoulas companies -- including 43 Market Baskets, 12 Demoulas SuperMarkets units and several real-estate subsidiaries -- be audited by a major accounting firm.

arkets and Market Basket.

In two earlier court decisions, the corporate assets were found to belong jointly to Telemachus Demoulas, his family and the family of his late brother George. Since the death of George Demoulas in 1971, his brother's side of the family has controlled those assets.

The audit and the expanded injunction are protective measures that will remain in place while Telemachus Demoulas appeals Lopez's earlier order that he and his family restore hundreds of millions of dollars in assets to his late brother's family.

According to Carol Cohen, an attorney for the George Demoulas family, "This decision offers significant relief . . . [because] the [George] Demoulas family has been enormously concerned that what has been ordered to be returned to them and to their companies by the courts could be put beyond their reach by the defendants during the appeals process."