In March, French industrialist Patrice Bouygues' SLPB Prestige Services agreed to purchase Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture from Artemis, Pinault's investment vehicle, for one euro.

The deal ran into its first snag earlier this month when employees at the YSL atelier announced their opposition to Bouygues' plans to transform the operation into a multi-brand couture operation, called "Prestige et Haute Couture."

The businessman wants to hire five couture designers to work in Saint Laurent's atelier and present their pieces in a group show, tentatively scheduled for January 2003.

Now Artemis is suing the works council of Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture, claiming that its "repeated refusal" to render a decision about the sale is excessive.

The holding company claims that the group has met seven times without offering its consultative opinion, required under French labor law for the deal to go through.

The official transfer of Saint Laurent's 5 Avenue Marceau studio and 150-person staff to SLPB currently is set to be signed July 31.

The works council responded Tuesday to Artemis's suit with its own statement, denying that the decision-making process has been extraordinarily long, particularly considering its "complexity and importance for the future of the workers concerned."

It points out that the wheels were not even set in motion until March 18.

The atelier workers, who appealed to French president Jacques Chirac to save their jobs after Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement in January, do not see Bouygues as their knight in shining armor.

"After Yves Saint Laurent's decision to stop his professional activities, there was a great risk that the teams who had accompanied him in his great adventure would lose their jobs," Pinault said in a statement when the sale was announced in March.

"SLPB Prestige Services' plan to take it over allows all the jobs to be saved and to preserve the know-how of French haute couture."

In its statement today, however, YSL Haute Couture expresses concern that SLPB is in the process of being dismantled and at least one of its businesses is under the French equivalent of Chapter 11.

Artemis acquired the money-losing YSL couture business in 1999. Its deal with Bouygues does not include rights to the YSL name, which Pinault still owns.

Gucci Group owns the YSL Rive Gauche ready-to-wear label, which has grown to new commercial proportions under designer Tom Ford.