ruptcy, the Government of Italy discouraged private bidders at the auctions held to dispose of ELSI's assets, by informing the public at large that the Government would be taking over ELSI's facilities. While proceeding with plans to take over ELSI, for example by negotiating agreements for rehiring the staff, IR1 is said to have "boycotted" the first three auctions of the assets, at which the terms set by the bankruptcy judge were not to its liking. ELTEL proposed to the trustee in bankruptcy that it be permitted to lease the plant, and to purchase the work in progress, and this was agreed to by the bankruptcy authorities on terms which, it is claimed, were adverse to ELSI's interests, both because the sums involved were too low and because ELTEL was placed in a position to dictate the terms of the final sale. At the final auction, ELTEL, already in possession under the lease, acquired the plant and related equipment for 4,000 million lire, the figure reported in the press to have been previously agreed on between IR1 and the Italian authorities. As a result of the arrangements made with the bankruptcy authorities for a piecemeal take-over, the total amount received for ELSI's assets was slightly over 4,000 million lire, as compared with the company's book valuation of over 12,000 million lire. 116. Thus, the charge based on the combination of the requisition and subsequent acts is really that the requisition was the beginning of a process that led to the acquisition of the bulk of the assets of ELSI (which was wholly owned by Raytheon and Machlett) for far less than market value. That is a charge, not of mere temporary taking - though the United States also contended that a temporary requisition can constitute an indirect taking - but of a process by which title to ELSI's assets itself was in the end transferred. So far as the requisition is concerned, counsel put the United States argument this way: "the fact that the requisition was for an extendable six-month period does not make this any less of an expropriation of interests in property, given the fact that the requisition drove ELSI into bankruptcy". What is thus alleged by the Applicant, if not an overt expropriation, might be regarded as a disguised expropriation; because, at the end of the process, it is indeed title to property itself that is at stake. The argument is that if a series of acts or omissions of the Italian authorities had the end result, whether intended or not and whether the result of collusion or not, of causing United States property in Italy to be ultimately transfened into the ownership of Italy, without proper compensation, there would be a violation of Article V, paragraph 2, of the FCN Treaty.