The stock market regulator FSMA recently reprimanded the listed company Nyrstar in a letter.
- Kris Vansanten
- Jan 10
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 27
Pleadings were held yesterday before the Turnhout District Court for the appointment of a provisional administrator at Nyrstar NV. The reason is the persistent and vexatious obstruction that Nyrstar and its lawyers have been waging for five years now in order to obstruct the course of justice and the discovery of the truth in this file surrounding the allegedly fraudulent restructuring of Nyrstar in 2019. The hearing now reveals that the FSMA sent a letter to call (the lawyers of) Nyrstar to order for defamatory allegations. "In that striking letter from chairman Jean-Paul Servais, which can be seen as a signal of the escalating tensions between Nyrstar and the stock market watchdog, the FSMA writes to formally and firmly deny the ‘unsubstantiated defamatory allegations,’ to have at no time violated its professional secrecy and not to have allowed itself to be pressured. The agency says it does not rule out further action."
The reaction of Nyrstar's lawyers was again denial and misleading: "Benoit Allemeersch (Quinz Advocaten), one of Nyrstar's lawyers, denied the use of the word ‘corrupt’. His confrere Stijn De Dier called it ‘curious’ for the FSMA to interfere in civil proceedings. 'There may be good reasons to doubt the value of the auditors' reports,' he sneered. By this he was referring to the auditor's findings to the FSMA in the case involving possible market manipulation by Nyrstar."
Isn't this yet another demonstration of hubris and confirmation of the sense of impunity felt by part of the corporate legal profession in Belgium and their wealthy clients? After these same lawyers have spent years presenting ex-post expert reports commissioned by their clients as being the absolute truth, which should show that everything was done correctly (while of course remaining silent about the countless disclaimers that reduced these reports to a conduit of their clients' opinions), now the credibility and authority of the regulatory authority is being undermined because it arrives at different conclusions based on existing internal (and hitherto concealed) ex-ante reports and new information, such as important McKinsey & Company reports? And if, as these reports surface, they are dismissed as “opportunistic studies of poor quality” by service lawyers in a public hearing?
If corporate lawyers have no qualms about publicly attacking official agencies, and to the extent that it would lead to success for their clients, then the foundations of our rule of law are being violated, and citizens are losing their last vestige of faith in the proper functioning of the rule of law.
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