The Amsterdam court has Thursday decided that Sywert van Lienden and Bernd Damme will be suspended as directors of the Auxiliary Alliance Foundation. The suspension follows a request from the Public Prosecution Service. The third partner, Camille van Gestel, previously voluntarily left the board of the foundation. The foundation was founded in 2020, shortly after the outbreak of the corona crisis, with the story that protective equipment for the healthcare sector would be imported without a profit motive.
In the civil case, the Public Prosecution Service argued that Van Lienden and his business partners Damme and Van Gestel “used the network of the foundation to make the mouth mask deal possible”. The court has ruled that the facts underlying this request are serious enough to justify a suspension.
The court has also appointed a temporary director, who must, incidentally, use his powers ‘with restraint’. Van Lienden and Van Damme will be given the opportunity on May 12 to respond to the suspension in court. The Public Prosecution Service is currently also conducting a criminal investigation into Van Lienden and his associates.
Face mask deal
Shortly after the outbreak of the corona crisis in March 2020, the Netherlands appeared to have a major shortage of mouth caps and other protective equipment for healthcare workers. Opinion maker Sywert van Lienden believed that he had a solution for the large shortage and subsequently set up a foundation for the import of the protective equipment. He managed to close a mega deal with the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. In the end, Van Lienden and his associates supplied about a hundred million face masks. Van Lienden all along claimed to be operating on a non-profit basis.
From research by de Volkskrant and Follow the Money However, it turned out that the three mask entrepreneurs have had a total of almost 30 million euros left over from the deal with the government. The masks they supplied turned out to be largely unusable and ended up on the shelf. The Public Prosecution Service has launched a criminal investigation after a report from employment agency Randstad, which deployed employees as volunteers of the Stichting Hulptroepen Alliantie.