Archive for April, 2017
Landsbanki Luxembourg managers and the bank’s chairman in French criminal court
Equity release loans are a dangerous product to offer to all and sundry and that’s exactly what happened to those who took out such loans with Landsbanki Luxembourg – mostly elderly property owners in France and Spain. In addition, there are suspicions as to how the bank managed the investment part of the loans. In 2015 this led to charges against Björgólfur Guðmundsson, Landsbanki’s chairman of the board and (together with his son Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson) the bank’s main shareholder, as well as Gunnar Thoroddsen manager of Landsbanki Luxembourg and other employees. The case is coming up in a Paris Court now on Tuesday, scheduled to run through May.
Icelog has earlier reported on the sorry saga of the Landsbanki Luxembourg equity release loans. The borrowers, elderly non-Icelandic owners of properties in Spain and France, have been fighting the administrator of Landsbanki Luxembourg, Yvette Hamelius as well as trying to attract the attention of Luxembourg authorities to what the borrowers allege to be criminal offences committed by the bank prior to the collapse and lack of attention by the administrator.
As reported earlier on Icelog: The authorities in Luxembourg have shown a remarkable lack of interest in this case and certainly the borrowers have been utterly and completely shunned there. The most remarkable and incomprehensible move was when the Luxembourg state prosecutor, no less, Robert Biever Procureur Général d’Etat sided with the administrator as outlined here on Icelog. The prosecutor, without any investigation, doubted the motives of the borrowers, saying outright that they were simply trying to avoid to pay back their debt.
However, French authorities have taken the case seriously. After investigation, a French judge, Renaud van Ruymbeke, took on the case and then passed his findings on to a French prosecutor. In August 2015 Landsbanki managers, i.a. Gunnar Thoroddsen and Björgólfur Guðmundsson, as well as some foreign Landsbanki staff (see here) were charged with breeching the French penal code, risking both fines and up to five years in prison.
The case starts on Tueday. The oral hearings are, as far as I know, scheduled for 2, 3, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23 and 24 May at Tribunal de grande instance de Paris. I plan to report on the on-going proceedings.
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