Articles

BY MICHEL VERMAERKE AND WIM DESTRIJKER What does a ten-hour general meeting of a listed company reveal about the quality of corporate governance in Belgium? In Nyrstar’s case, quite a lot. Michel Vermaerke and Wim Destrijker, both advisers to Nyrstar Collective, reconstruct the 30 June meeting through the eyes of investors who believe they have been badly wronged. Their analysis ended with the prediction that the next chapter in the Nyrstar saga might yet produce an unexpecte

The Belgian newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen published an article with testimonials of Nyrstar shareholders and the legal battle they have waged for the past seven years. Seven years ago this week, Nyrstar shares became worthless overnight, and thousands of minority shareholders were left empty-handed. Seven years of court proceedings and uncertainty followed. Today, the ground beneath this dossier has shifted, and it has shifted substantially, maybe even decisively. The article

Anyone who wants a clear, no-nonsense primer on what has recently happened in the Antwerp’ criminal proceedings involving Nyrstar should read a piece published by Discovery Alert, an Australian mining-news outlet with no obvious stake in the outcome. Their article, "Nyrstar Forgery Investigation in Antwerp: What Investors Should Know", does a rather good job of laying out, briefly and in plain language, the state of the legal proceedings and the weight of the three allegation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation published a story that Belgian and European regulators, prosecutors and politicians would do well to read closely (see the original article via the button below). ABC News reports that Nyrstar Collective had warned Australian governments about exactly the pattern now playing out at Nyrstar's Port Pirie and Hobart smelters: public money flowing into a company controlled by commody giant Trafigura even as the trading house books extraordi

In a striking illustration of the widening gap between corporate sustainability claims and environmental reality, a Dutch water authority has taken legal action against pollution caused by Nyrstar’s zinc plant in Pelt, Belgium. The dispute centers on discharges of toxic substances into the Dommel River. The pollution is so severe it is preventing the Dutch province of North Brabant from meeting EU water quality and public health standards. The question is not only why Flander

What occurred at Nyrstar is increasingly difficult to view as a one-off cycle of events. The sequence suggests a repeatable model rather than an isolated case. Developments surrounding a gold mining project in Ghana indicate that similar mechanisms may still be in use. This matters not only for interpreting the past, but also for current and future counterparties, including groups such as Korea Zinc, now acquiring parts of Nyrstar’s business. The Cuckoo Strategy: Enter, Weak

The Market Court recently received a petition for the annulment and reform of the decision of the Sanctions Commission of financial watchdog FSMA in the Nyrstar case. The commission had found Nyrstar NV guilty of market manipulation. The company was fined €80,000, but its board members were acquitted. The commission ruled that there had been insufficient investigation into their individual roles in the manipulation. That ruling is now being challenged. The ball is therefore i

The FSMA Sanctions Commission did find misleading practices at Nyrstar and convicted it of market manipulation related to its liquidity position prior to the restructuring. The other allegations, despite having been thoroughly analyzed for four years by the FSMA Auditor, were dismissed two years later, after six years of proceedings, including five days of closed-door hearings, without even consulting the minority shareholders' union that had been working on the case for more

“Together, we can make our societies open for business but closed for crime.” The words of Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever at the United Nations still resonate as I work my way through the 146-page decision of the FSMA Sanctions Committee on market manipulation at Nyrstar NV. The Committee’s mandate was clear: to determine the sanctions for four violations identified by the FSMA’s auditor after years of investigation. His exhaustive reports left little doubt that Nyrstar

In this short video, Bart De Smet, Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee, reflects on the independence of board members and the...

Is Nyrstar’s board of directors truly caught between a rock and a hard place? That metaphor positions the board as a victim. In reality, it has uncritically aligned itself with the interests of its majority shareholder, Trafigura. In a recent interview with De Tijd, Marc Taeymans, an independent board member at Nyrstar, portrayed the company as a collatoral casuality in a dispute between Trafigura and minority shareholders. This portrayal is not only inaccurate—it is perilous

The financial newspaper De Tijd published an opinion by Kris Vansanten in which he argues that Nyrstar should finally act in line with...

Minority shareholders sound the alarm about poor governance, conflicts of interest, mismanagement, and excessive spending. Nyrstar NV, a...

Another unexpected twist in the Nyrstar case: Kris Peeters withdraws as candidate director. What could be going on? Kris Peeters - © Filip Naudts CC-BY-SA 4.0 Until recently, Mr. Peeters was a director at the European Investment Bank (EIB). Some research reveals that Article 6.1 of the EIB's Code of Conduct for the Board of Directors stipulates the following after the end of such a mandate: "Former Members of the Board of Directors have the duty to behave with integrity an

The integrity of corporate governance is under increasing scrutiny — and rightfully so. Belgium’s recent history has shown how vulnerable...

The classic 'principal-agent problem' played a central role in the Nyrstar case. Kris Vansanten describes how board members and legal...

"The protection of minority shareholders and the strengthening of the Belgian capital market require well-founded analysis and policy....

It appears that, as part of the restructuring of Nyrstar, the listed residual company Nyrstar NV was transformed into a shell company...

When the grown-ups talk, the little ones must be silent. This was a familiar scene at many family tables for a long time. In the business...

After more than five years of struggle by a group of minority shareholders against Trafigura's takeover of Nyrstar, and with the facts...