Fortis

Please note that the registrations are closed.

 

Update - 06 May 2011

 

Deminor is defending the interests of both private and institutional investors having invested in Fortis' shares. The first actions were taken in October 2008 and have led to the appointment of experts whose mission is to analyze the transactions at end of September and beginning of October 2008 that led to the dismantling of the Fortis group. In addition, Deminor has initiated in January 2010 a civil lawsuit before the Commercial Court in Brussels against Fortis (now ageas), claiming damages on behalf of its clients for the losses suffered due to Fortis' misleading communication between 29 may 2007 and 3 October 2008. Further information is provided below.

Lawsuit against Fortis based on misleading information

In January 2010, Deminor launched the first large scale collective action against Fortis (now ageas) before the Commercial Court in Brussels (Belgium) in order to claim compensation for the losses suffered by investors due to the misleading information disclosed by Fortis during the period of time between the official announcement of the takeover bid on ABN AMRO in May 2007 and the dismantling of the group in October 2008.

 

After a sound analysis of Fortis' communication during that period, Deminor has come to the conclusion that the information provided by Fortis was misleading on several material aspects, including with regard to its subprime exposure, its dividend policy, its liquidity, its solvency and the consequences of the acquisition of ABN AMRO, and that investors have decided to buy and/or hold Fortis shares based on that information.

Since the launch of the case, Deminor's analysis has been confirmed and reinforced on several occasions, including in the report of the Dutch court-appointed experts published in June 2010 and by the two decisions of the Dutch Market Authority (AFM) in February and August 2010 imposing fines on Fortis for violation of the Dutch law on financial supervision.

 

The group of investors around Deminor consists of 4,900 retail investors and 470 institutional investors from various regions of the world, including Europe, America and Asia. It is thus the largest and most representative group of investors having suffered losses because of Fortis' misleading communication.

 

Since Belgian legislation does not provide for a special collective action proceeding (such as a U.S.-style class action), the individual shareholders' claims have been bundled into one single proceeding. This means that the court will hear one single case brought by all investors collectively. In addition, this means that, if a court decides to award damages to investors, only those investors who participate in the action will benefit from such damages.