On July 13, 2018, the Amsterdam Court of Appeals finally approved the €1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) settlement of a series of shareholder claims against Fortis in the wake of the global financial crisis. The settlement, which had first been announced in March 2016 by Ageas, Fortis’s successor in interest, faced a number of judicial objections and concerns, resulting in changes to the settlement as originally proposed. According to a July 27, 2018 Law 360 article by Jonathan Richman of the Proskauer law firm and Ianika Tzankova of Tilburg University (here), the court’s recent approval “again shows” that the Dutch settlement procedure “remains a viable settlement vehicle for companies wishing to resolve transnational problems on a classwide, opt-out basis.” On the other hand, claimants’ attorneys have questioned whether the court’s rulings on class distribution and attorneys’ fees could discourage institutional investors from seeking to use the Dutch settlement procedures.
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Guest Post: Dutch Collective Actions vs. Collective Settlements
As collective investor actions have become an increasingly global phenomenon, a recurring question has been whether another jurisdiction will emerge as the preferred forum for aggrieved investors to pursue their claims. Among the countries often mentioned in this context it the Netherlands, owing to the country’s collective settlement procedures. In a recent post, I noted a September 2016 decision from the Amsterdam District Court and suggested that the court’s jurisdictional ruling could diminish the usefulness and appeal of the Dutch collective settlement procedures. In the following guest post, Jonathan Richman of the Proskauer Rose law firm clarifies that the Dutch court’s ruling pertained to the country’s collective action procedures, not the separate collective settlement procedures, and that, contrary to my blog post’s suggestion, the court’s jurisdictional ruling arguably does not diminish the collective settlement procedures’ utility. I would like to thank Jonathan for his willingness to publish his article on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Jonathan’s guest post.
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