The civil settlement of the fraud case concerning Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) will be discussed again on Friday before the Ghent court of appeal. The court decided in June to postpone the case because due to the corona crisis, closing periods had been extended. It has been ten years since founders Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie were criminally convicted.
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The speech technology company went bankrupt in 2001, after having been in free fall since the summer of 2000 following a fraud scandal following reports of accounting irregularities. On 20 September 2010, the court of appeal in Ghent imposed the sentences in the fraud case involving L&H and sentenced founders Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie to five years each, of which two years with a postponement.
The Court of Appeal was only able to settle the civil claims in the case in 2014, following proceedings before the Supreme Court. More than 15,000 civil parties were then still claiming compensation, including 2,733 victims without a lawyer. The bourgeois parties mainly hoped for a conviction of company auditor KPMG, who, unlike other defendants, would have sufficient financial resources. However, the Ghent Court of Appeal already ruled that KPMG should not pay any damages. Only six former directors, including Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, are still eligible for compensation.
The settlement of the compensation has already been postponed several times. In December last year, that happened after Deminor decided to drop the claims, as the parties do not have the means to pay damages. The case was then postponed to June 5, but that date was also not met. Due to the corona crisis, certain closing periods are being extended, so that the case could not be pleaded, but it will normally be handled today.
A judgment is expected in 2021, but it is also possible to appeal in cassation.
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