MN Services joins RBS class action
March 18 2009, 10:18 amMN Services, the Dutch pension fund and investment manager, has confirmed it has joined the class action case against Royal Bank of Scotland as a co-lead plaintiff.
Speaking to Professional Pensions, MN Services head of corporate governance Chris Douma said the company had decided to join the action based on the losses it had incurred through its exposure to RBS, but also to reaffirm the position of European investors in such cases.
He explained: “We see a growing number of class action cases where European investors are excluded from class action cases by US judges – we are convinced that European investors in European investors should be taken on board in cases such as these.”
Douma also refused to rue out participating in further actions in the US, although he conceded the company would probably not be a lead or co-lead plaintiff in other cases.
MN Services will join the UK’s Merseyside and North Yorkshire pension funds in the class action against the bank, which is seeking damages for alleged “materially false and misleading” statements about the bank’s financial health, which led to huge losses for investors (PP Online, March 16 2009).
Goal Group, which works alongside UK pension schemes and other institutional investors on class action cases, urged other schemes to follow suit and join the action.
Goal Group Managing Director Stephen Everards said: “Local authorities not participating in US class actions such as the RBS case risk losing out on a massive opportunity to seek compensation and plug their escalating pension gap.
“There remains a common misconception that the effort involved in filing a claim outweighs the benefits, however this is simply not true.”
He added: “This case is a real wake-up call for all UK local authorities that they can no longer afford to ignore their legal right – and indeed responsibility – to participate in US class actions. Local authorities are particularly exposed in the credit crisis because of their widespread investments in banks.”
