Do you hold a bond, Interest Certificate, Savings Interest Certificate, Annual Interest Certificate, or High Yield Note from Floresteca B.V. Netherlands? Then you probably already know that the situation is alarming. Payouts have stopped. The company has applied for a suspension of payment. An agreement has been offered that compensates only a fraction of your investment. And there is no clarity on when — or if — you will ever get your money back through regular channels.
How did it come to this?
Floresteca B.V. Netherlands sold financial products backed by teak wood on plantations in Brazil, managed by parent company Floresteca S.A. The products were deliberately offered as bonds starting at €50,000, which meant the company fell outside the licensing requirements of the AFM (Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets) — a structure designed to operate without supervision.
After the AFM banned Goodwood Investments, Goodwood’s top sellers were transferred to Floresteca. They were instructed to approach existing Goodwood investors with the proposal to exchange their participations for Floresteca bonds — often requiring substantial additional payments. Many investors were thus defrauded twice: first by Goodwood, then by Floresteca.
The suspension of payment and the agreement
Floresteca B.V. Netherlands applied for a suspension of payment and offered an agreement to its creditors. During the vote, 96% of the recognized creditors voted in favor of the agreement, which was subsequently homologated (declared binding) by the Amsterdam court. This agreement offers investors only a limited percentage of their original investment.
Foundation BFRG has lodged an appeal against this decision on behalf of 22 of the 839 creditors. We believe that the agreement is not in the interest of the defrauded investors and that better recovery options exist — namely through directors’ and officers’ liability.
The alternative route: directors’ liability
The suspension of payment agreement is not the only route. Through a mass claim directed at the founders and directors who are personally responsible for the course of events, your full investment loss may potentially be recovered. The claim is then not directed at the company (which has little recoverable assets), but at the natural persons behind the fraud — targeting their private assets.
Through years of forensic investigation, Bureau Fraude Recht & Geldzaken has built the burden of proof to legally substantiate this route. Our lawyers consider the chances of success to be good.
Which Floresteca products fall under the claim?
All financial products sold by Floresteca B.V. Netherlands potentially fall under the mass claim: bonds, Interest Certificates, Savings Interest Certificates, Annual Interest Certificates, High Yield Notes I and II, and any other products. If you own one of these products and have not received a (full) payout, you have been defrauded and may be eligible to participate.
