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Deminor launches the Deminor Active Governance Fund

For more information about DAGF, please click on the link below.

Deminor prepares new actions against Parmalat defendants

European investors have been excluded from US securities class action against American defendants. Deminor is grouping investors with the objective of recovering maximum damages through European actions

A group of European institutional investors advised by Deminor is in the process of filing a collective action in Europe to recover the losses they suffered on their Parmalat investments.

The action will be filed against the auditors - Deloitte Touche (U.S. and International) and Grant Thornton (U.S. and International) -, and against the banks - Citibank, Bank of America, UBS, Nextra, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. Back in 2005, Deminor already filed an action against Deloitte Touche and Grant Thornton in Italy on behalf of a group of approximately 3,000 private investors.

Until recently, European investors have been seeking to recover these losses through a U.S. class action. The judge overseeing the class action has now, however, excluded European investors from most of the claims pending in the U.S. proceedings for jurisdictional reasons. For this reason, European investors have no other choice but to seek recovery through a European action. We are now offering the possibility to all European investors to join our action and to benefit from any award of damages or settlement that we may obtain.

For more information, please visit the damage recovery section of this web site and select "Parmalat".

Lehman Brothers: press release

Deminor is forming a European Creditor Committee with the objective of representing European Lehman Brothers creditors and recovering their assets from Lehman Brother's restructuring and from financial intermediaries who distributed Lehman Brothers' financial instruments in Europe.

Over the last couple of years, Lehman Brothers Treasury Co. B.V issued bonds and structured products in various European countries for an estimated total amount of 34 billions USD. These bonds and products were unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by its parent company Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Following Lehman Brothers' Holdings Inc. financial troubles, both the parent company and its European subsidiary were granted protection against their creditors on September 15 and September 19, respectively. As a result, many investors who had purchased these Lehman Brothers bonds and structured products are currently exposed to substantial losses on a pan-European scale.

Following the suspension of payments, numerous investors in Lehman Brothers products contacted Deminor with the request of federating Lehman Brothers European creditors and assisting them to recover their losses.

Many of the financial instruments issued by Lehman Brothers were placed with retail investors through the networks of European retail banks. The Lehman Brothers financial instruments were repackaged as traditional savings or insurance products of the European retail banks and were not sold as corporate bonds with risk exposure to a highly leveraged American investment bank. In many cases, the European banks seem to have made misrepresentations about the risk profile and guarantees attached to these instruments when promoting them with their retail clients. In various cases reported to Deminor, basic rules relating to risk spreading have not been observed. Moreover, the banks have not kept their clients informed about the worsening risk profile of Lehman Brothers throughout 2007 and 2008. European-wide MiFid rules seem to have been violated on a massive scale.

Deminor will group European bondholders and owners of structured products (including insurance products) issued by Lehman Brothers Treasury Co. B.V. Deminor will start immediate action in order to safeguard and protect the rights of these investors within the framework of the insolvency proceedings of Lehman Brothers Treasury Co. B.V. in the Netherlands and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in the USA. Deminor will also file actions against those intermediaries who have distributed bonds and structured products on the European market and have failed to comply with MiFid requirements. Investors can register on-line and input their transaction data through Deminor's web site.

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Contact Person :

Erik BOMANS
Deminor International SCRL
Avenue Edm. Van Nieuwenhuyselaan 6 b.8
1160 Brussels
Belgium
Tel. : +32.2.674.71.10
erik.bomans@deminor.com

About Deminor : Deminor is a company specialising in investor protection services for European investors. Throughout its local offices in various European countries, Deminor assists investors in protecting their rights and recovering their assets. Deminor also offers corporate governance and active engagement services to institutional investors. It manages a focused corporate governance fund (DAGF) on behalf of private and institutional investors. It offers corporate finance services to minority shareholders in non-listed companies. For more information about our services and pending cases, please visit our web site www.deminor.com.

Please find herebelow our press release regarding Lehman Brothers

Class Action Americana Parmalat

Please choose "Italian" as language in order to read this article.

Deminor prepares new actions against Parmalat defendants

A group of European institutional investors advised by Deminor is in the process of filing a collective action in Europe to recover the losses they suffered on their Parmalat investments.

For more information, please visit the damage recovery section of this web site and select "Parmalat".

Lehman Brothers Treasury Co. B.V

Please choose "Italian" as language in order to read the article.

Deminor webcast: Status of the Madoff case

This webcast will be online on Tuesday October 20, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

Go to the webcast "Deminor: status of the Madoff case"

Joost J.Kramer (29) has been appointed as new Manager of Deminor Nederland

Amsterdam, Tuesday 1 December 2009 - As from 1 December 2009, Mr Joost J. Kramer (29) has been appointed as new manager of Deminor Nederland. Joost Kramer is an experienced lawyer with an MSc in Management of the University of Nyenrode. He has been a lawyer for three years with Houthoff Buruma N.V. and consequently corporate counsel with Koninklijke Ahold N.V.

Joost Kramer will coordinate and develop different activities of Deminor in the Netherlands together with Bernard Thuysbaert, partner of Deminor International and director of Deminor Nederland.

Deminor has the ambition to further expand its activities and team in the Netherlands considering the increasing number of mandates regarding:

(i) Advise on questions of shareholders of non-listed companies,

(ii) Corporate governance research and engagement assistance of listed companies, and

(iii) Collective damage claims of investors.

Mr Otto B. Linker (58), who was appointed in March as director ad interim and recently resigned, will keep supporting Deminor in the Netherlands as an ‘of counsel' advisor.

Persons of contact:

Deminor Nederland (Amsterdam):

Joost Kramer
Manager Deminor Nederland
Tel. + 31 (0)20 3012 340
Email: joost.kramer@deminor.com

Bernard Thuysbaert
Director Deminor Nederland
Tel. + 32 475 366 382
Email: bernard.thuysbaert@deminor.com

Websites:
www.deminor.com
www.governanceplatform.com
www.dagfund.com

Download:

Deminor Press Release Joost J.Kramer (29) has been appointed as new Manager of Deminor Nederland

One Year post Madoff

One year after the Madoff scandal was revealed, European investors have formed a pan-European syndicate aimed at recovering their losses suffered on funds with Madoff exposure. Deminor's analysis demonstrates that the Madoff feeder funds have been set up in breach of European rules, that investors have been misled and that the service providers failed to perform their contractual and legal duties. More than ever, Deminor's clients are determined to recover their losses from the responsible institutions. Investors cannot rely on actions undertaken by third parties, such as the US trustee or the funds' liquidators, if they want to benefit from a maximum recovery.

A. An international and diversified syndicate of more than 1.000 investors

As of today, Deminor represents more than 1.000 investors who have invested in the so-called "Madoff feeder-funds". These investors are mainly from Europe (The Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium) and South-America (Argentina and Uruguay). They are individual or institutional investors, representing altogether losses of approximately EUR 400 million. Losses per investor range between EUR 5.000 to EUR 30.000.000.

Erik Bomans, a Deminor partner : "investors must understand the need to join forces in order to form a common representative front against the involved institutions' obstinate refusal to compensate losses despite clear evidence that they breached their legal obligations. We believe that only a collective representative investor action can lead to a successful outcome".

B. Achievements since December 2008 and update of legal analysis

Since December 2008, Deminor has been principally active on the following investment funds whose assets have been entrusted to and managed by Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC ("BMIS"): Luxalpha, Luxinvest, Thybo International, Plaza, Herald Lux, Kingate, Hermes and Fairfield. Court or regulatory actions have been taken in Luxembourg, Monaco and the British Virgin Islands. Proceedings in the Netherlands are being prepared.

Deminor has successfully undertaken pre-trial discovery actions before the Luxembourg courts in order to receive further information on the relationship between the involved financial institutions and BMIS. Documents revealed that Madoff cumulated all important functions and that there was no appropriate control mechanisms put in place by the designated custodians (i.e. UBS and HSBC) on BMIS's activities. Investors have been misled about the true nature of their investments since the prospectus has not mentioned essential information, and the legal guarantees attached to UCITS funds have been breached.

Erik Bomans: "we have serious indications that UBS and/or Ernst and Young have not correctly informed the Luxembourg financial authorities about the delegation of the custody to BMIS, as they were supposed to do in accordance with the Luxembourg regulations. Our analysis indicates that UBS and/or Ernst Young made materially wrong statements to the Luxembourg financial authorities by failing to mention that BMIS was UBS's sub-custodians for the Madoff "feeder funds"".

Following these pre-trial actions and the completion of its analysis, Deminor filed in October 2009 an action for damages against several UBS entities in Luxembourg. Legal actions against HSBC, Citco, Ernst & Young and PwC are in the process of being finalised and will be filed shortly before the appropriate courts.

Deminor wrote at several occasion to the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier ("CSSF"), the Luxembourg financial regulatory authority. Deminor recently demanded that the CSSF sanctions UBS as investment manager of Luxalpha for violation of Luxembourg law. CSSF has not replied so far to Deminor's arguments.

Erik Bomans: "We strongly believe that BMIS did act as investment manager, and not only as custodian and broker. Facts demonstrate that UBS knew that BMIS was doing more than the execution of orders. The delegation to BMIS was therefore in breach of the applicable Luxembourg and European laws, since the functions of investment management and custody cannot be delegated to the same entity. The set-up of the fund was illegal from the very beginning". Deminor urges the CSSF to withdraw UBS's licence as investment manager in Luxembourg.

Despite clear evidence that they breached their contractual and legal obligations, the major international institution which acted as custodians, investment managers or auditors of the funds have so far failed to recognize their responsibilities. Investors need to file actions on the merits to claim damages before the appropriate jurisdictions, as a "sit back and wait" attitude may lead to an exclusion from any recovery and is not likely to force these institutions to change their current attitude.

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Contact person:

Erik Bomans
Deminor International SCRL
+32-2-674.71.10
erik.bomans@deminor.com

Lehman Brothers Citibank - More than 98,6% of our clients accepted the settlement agreement

More than 98,6% of Deminor's clients have entered into the settlement agreement negotiated between Citibank Belgium and Deminor in the framework of the Lehman Brothers case. Deminor will no longer be active on that case with regards to Citibank Belgium.

Deminor continues to actively represent investors in Belgium (clients of Deutsche Bank), the Netherlands (clients of Wijs & Van Oostveen), or Italy (mainly clients of Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit groups). Deminor will continue to intervene in these cases in order to recover the losses suffered by its clients.

1. Following the end of the settlement period which took place on this Thursday 18 February 2010 at 5 PM, more than 98,6% of Deminor's clients have accepted the settlement offer which has been negotiated between Citibank Belgium and Deminor in the framework of the Lehman Brothers case. More than 68% have accepted the opportunity to place the amount of the payment in a 3 years' time deposit account yielding at 5.3% gross annual interest rate.

As previously indicated, Deminor will no longer be active on that case with regards to Citibank Belgium.

Deminor has been mandated by more than 500 Citibank Belgium's clients.

2. Since October 2008, Deminor has been at the forefront representing investors hit by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, by federating more than 1.100 persons in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.

Deminor continues to actively represent in Belgium clients of Deutsche Bank who have no obtained so far appropriate damages for their losses. Deminor served a writ of summons against Deutsche Bank before the

Commercial Court of Brussels in July 2009, and is closely monitoring the evolution of the investigation initiated by the Public Prosecutor of Brussels against Deutsche Bank and/or its managers on that case.

In the Netherlands, Deminor has federated a group of around 375 investors who are clients of Wijs & Van Oostveen, and is about to initiate a legal action on the merits against that financial intermediary before the court of Amsterdam in order to recover the losses suffered by its clients on their Lehman Brothers' financial products.

In Italy, Deminor has been contacted by a substantial number of investors, and is currently considering to start a legal action on a short-term basis against several financial intermediaries, such as Banca Fideuram (Intesa Sanpaolo group) and Unicredit.

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Contact :

Arturo Albano

+39 (02) 873 846 04

arturo.albano@deminor.com

Deminor evaluates options for UBS shareholders following the AGM's refusal to grant discharge

Please click here to read more about the UBS case