THE HAGUE (AFP) — Shareholders of former Belgian-Dutch financial group Fortis, now dismantled and part-nationalised, are to sue three former company bosses in a Netherlands court for fraud, their lawyer told AFP Thursday.
The shareholders have appointed a firm of advocates in Amsterdam to represent their claim against former Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens, chief executive Jean-Paul Votron and chief financial officer Gilbert Mittler, said Hendrik Jan Bos.
"We want damages of 10 euros per share for the period January to June this year when they misled shareholders by stating that all was well," he told AFP.
Despite these assurances, the group announced plans late June to urgently boost its capital reserves by eight billion euros, sparking a massive fall in Fortis shares.
The company's shares were trading at about 30 euros in July 2007. After the cash call in June, they plummeted to just over 10 euros.
Bos declined to reveal the identities of his clients or their total share in the company.
"They are not very big shareholders, but that is not important. What matters is that they were misled by the directors."
Bos said the three directors failed to respond to a legal letter by the deadline of midnight on Wednesday, and the case will now be filed in court.
Hard hit by the global financial crisis, Fortis was dismantled earlier this month, with its Dutch assets nationalised by the Netherlands government and its Belgian and Luxembourg activities sold to French bank BNP Paribas.
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