It concerns people who had invested in cooperative shares of Arco companies, but lost their money in the financial crisis. Arco was a shareholder in banking group Dexia, which collapsed in the financial crisis.
misled
The victims believe that they were misled by the Arco companies, the predecessors of the bank Belfius, Arco director Francine Swiggers and the Belgian state. The investment in Arco would have been presented to savers as safe. The cooperatives demanded their investment back.
The court points out in the judgment that it was not a class action, which was not possible in this case. Each cooperator therefore had to provide individual evidence and, according to the court, this did not happen. Standardized questionnaires completed by co-operators were “little serious” and “tendentious”, it sounds.
Any cooperative
In fact, each cooperator in the case should have proved which misleading or incorrect information had led him or her to the transaction, when and how that information reached the claimant concerned, and to what extent the information was decisive for subscribing to Arco. shares.
For Swiggers, the verdict is a victory. The cooperatives accused her of financial statements fraud. Swiggers responded with a counterclaim for vexatious and reckless litigation and was proved right.
The court notes, among other things, that the cooperatives have not filed a criminal complaint, “which would have been the normal course of action if they believe that a criminal offense was committed”. Swiggers receives a symbolic compensation of 1 euro. She herself had estimated her damage at 25,000 euros.
READ ALSO. New thundercloud threatens over thousands of Arco investors “after being lied to four times”
Deminor: “Very disappointing”
For Deminor, the verdict is “very disappointing”, says CEO Erik Bomans. The court called the claim inadmissible because the cooperative members did not provide evidence individually, and according to Bomans set the bar very high in this way. “A lot of documents were submitted in the procedure, such as commercial brochures issued by Arco and distributed by the bank, with the same message that the shares were offered as a risk-free savings product,” he says. “The court pretends they don’t exist.”
Providing individual evidence is not easy for the cooperatives, Bomans believes. “People came into the bank branch and there was some explanation given with the message ‘this is good for you, sign up’. It is impossible for those people to prove more than what is laid down in the proceedings.”
The cooperatives therefore have no prospect of compensation. The court has not yet made a decision on the court costs.
Profession
Deminor does not yet want to make any statements about a possible appeal procedure. “We need to do a thorough study of the verdict. We also need to consider who we can go against. Maybe to all, maybe to some. That requires study,” says Bomans. “If there are grounds to continue, we will do so. We will not just let people down.”
That the court ruled in favor of former Arco top woman Francine Swiggers in her counterclaim for provocative and reckless proceedings is “even more incomprehensible” to Bomans. According to Deminor, Swiggers has presented himself as the figurehead of Arco “and the interpreter of the whole idea of the risk-free investment products, even until a year or two years before Arco has collapsed”.
– .
