A group of Triodos certificate holders wants to enforce compensation from four former directors of the sustainable bank, because their certificates of the sustainable bank would have become much less valuable due to actions by the directors. Financial activist Pieter Lakeman, who supports the Red Triodos foundation, announced this on Monday.
Lakeman, known as the nail in the coffin of DSB Bank with his call in 2009 to withdraw money from the bank, has set his sights on former chairman Peter Blom, among others. He led the sustainable bank between 1997 and 2021. In addition, it concerns financial director André Haag, who started at Triodos in 2020 but switched to De Volksbank in 2022, Pierre Herman Aeby, who was in charge financially for Haag, and finally board member Jeltje Joukje Banga-Witte.
So far, 450 people have registered with Red Triodos, who together hold 280,000 sustainable bank certificates. They believe they have been duped by Triodos when trading in certificates was halted during the corona pandemic.
Until the corona pandemic, Triodos facilitated trading in the non-voting shares themselves, at a price based on the book value of the bank. That was 84 euros just before the shutdown in 2020.
During the corona crisis, however, there were too many sellers and too few buyers, while the bank was only allowed to purchase the certificates itself for a limited amount. The bank tried to open trade in 2021, but that went wrong again. Since then, trading has come to a complete standstill, and the 43,000 depositary receipt holders have not been able to access their joint deposit of approximately 1 billion euros for years.
Trading has been reopened since the beginning of July, via a public trading platform. There the price is based on supply and demand. In the last trading round, certificates were sold for 40 euros. At the lowest point, it was 22.50 euros.
Read also: Reopened Triodos certificate trading does not bring peace. On the contrary
According to Lakeman, the depository receipt holders have a good chance of receiving compensation following a ruling by the Enterprise Chamber earlier this year. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided that there should be no investigation into possible mismanagement by Triodos regarding the trade in certificates – that was not in the current interest of the certificate holders. But the court was critical of the bank management and supervisory board in the past.
The Enterprise Chamber wrote “not easy to understand” why, after it became clear internally at the bank in 2017 that the internal trading system entailed serious risks, a concrete plan was not immediately drawn up for alternatives and no emergency scenario was drawn up in case the trading system actually came to a standstill. Although the board acknowledged that there were risks associated with the system, ‘but this did not lead to concrete plans and measures during that period’.
First step
Blom has worked at Triodos since its foundation in 1980. Between 1997 and 2021 he was chairman of the bank’s board. Blom is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of De Nederlandsche Bank. However, he temporarily resigned that position last year due to the legal proceedings surrounding the certificates of his former employer.
As a first step, Lakeman has now sent letters to the four former directors asking for the amount for which they have liability insurance – which has been paid for by Triodos. According to the financial campaigner, the amount of this insurance determines for how many certificate holders it could enforce compensation from the court.
Lakeman does not rule out that he will also try to recover damages from the bank itself. Triodos Tragedie, another group of six hundred certificate holders, announced a claim action against the bank earlier this month. In addition, there are several individual cases pending in Spain, in which the bank has lost more cases than won so far.
Current chairman of the board Jeroen Rijpkema previously said against NRC that claims against Triodos are not in the interest of depository receipt holders, because litigation is not good for confidence in the bank (and therefore also for the value). But also because when people demand compensation from the bank, it must be paid by all depositary receipt holders together. “The capital of the bank belongs to them […] We are convinced that it is better to stand together around the bank and look to the future. But: everyone is free to make their own choices.”
Read also: Triodos CEO: The certificate holder is also not helped with a mass claim
Stichting Depositary Receipt Holders Triodos Bank (SCTB), to which by far the most people are affiliated (three thousand), was the party that previously approached the Enterprise Chamber for an investigation into mismanagement. Since the rejection of that investigation, the foundation initially adopted a constructive attitude towards the bank. Last week, however, SCTB announced that it had suspended all talks with Triodos, after she said she had not received any answers to a number of questions during the announcement of the – admittedly very positive – half-year results. “If people consider a further constructive relationship with our Foundation important, then concrete commitments must be made […] If that does not happen, we will consider a different strategy with regard to our position vis-à-vis the bank.”