The former management of Dutch retail giant Ahold will appear in court Monday for the accounting scandal that brought Ahold, then the world's second-largest retailer, to the brink of bankruptcy.
In 2003 more than 900 million euros (1.1 billion dollars) in accounting irregularities were discovered at Ahold joint ventures in Argentina, Brazil and Scandinavia.
Three years after Ahold announced the fraud on February 24, 2003, the company's former chairman Cees van der Hoeven, the ex-chief financial officer Michiel Meurs, former European activities director Jan Andreae and Roland Fahlin, the ex-chairman of Ahold's accounting commission, will have to explain their "intentional" accounting irregularities to the judges.
They are formally charged with forgery and fraud for publishing false financial accounts.
According to prosecutors, Ahold falsely claimed to have control over subsidiaries in Sweden and Latin America and incorporated their results into the company's overall results. The company is also said to have deceived financial controllers and cheated on price reductions in the accounts of its American subsidiary US Foodservice. The investigation into the scandal revealed more fraud and accounting irregularities.
In the weeks after the fraud was discovered Ahold purged its management, throwing out the men going on trial Monday. Its new management under the leadership of Chairman Anders Moberg, the ex-chairman of Ikea, launched a drastic restructuring program selling off several subsidiaries and cutting jobs so it could meet its financial obligations.
The scandal and the near bankruptcy of Ahold were especially hard on The Netherlands which likes to present itself as a standard-bearer for integrity, and which saw the company - established over a hundred years ago from a small greengrocer in western Zaandam - in the forefront of Dutch economic life.
Ahold shares, once seen as a steady and stable investment, plummeted.
The trial opening Monday however will not see the company in the dock but only a part of its former management. In September 2004 Ahold reached a settlement with the Dutch prosecutors and agreed to pay out eight million euros and admitted the use of so-called side letters in various joint ventures.
The prosecutor said Ahold had admitted "without reserve" using side letters - secret agreements between Ahold and its partners that are not stated within contracts - in dealings with its ICA joint venture in Scandinavia, with Bompreco in Brazil, and Velox and Disco in Argentina.
The company also settled with shareholders in the Netherlands and the United States in November last year for the amount of 1.1 billion dollars.
That was the last of the civil litigation arising from the fraud for Ahold but the Dutch stock exchange authorities still have to finish their investigation and Ahold could face more legal problems when they do.
On Monday only some of the company's former managers will be on trial as they are seen as personally responsible for the fraud. In earlier procedural hearings the other ex-directors seemed to be pointing the finger of blame at Michiel Meurs.
The trial will run through May 8 with a judgement expected on May 22.
Comments
Comments are closed.