On October 28th, 2009, the founder of the “K1” hedge fund, Helmut Kiener, was arrested by instruction of the public prosecutor’s office of Würzburg on suspicion of breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. According to media reports, the hedge fund manager from Aschaffenburg, who trained as a psychologist, is charged with having defrauded major institutional investors and private individuals by several million Euros. According to information cited by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), he has caused losses of around 200 million Euros, whereas the US financial news service Bloomberg refers to damages of 400 million US dollars (approximately 270 million Euros).
According to the Bloomberg information service, major international banks such as Barclays, J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas are affected. PIA ProtectInvestAlliance has been monitoring Helmut Kiener’s activities for quite some time now, ever since he was first involved in legal disputes with the supervisory authorities. Currently, we are in the process of identifying parties against whom the claims may be brought to which the private and institutional investors who may have been defrauded are entitled. In view of the apparently deliberately confusing corporate structure of the “Kiener Gruppe”, this effort is time-consuming and requires considerable amounts of work.
At present, we have already been retained by numerous private clients for this matter. Moreover, we are in negotiations with major institutional investors who are already our clients, consulting them on this issue and discussing ways of protecting their interests.
PIA ProtectInvestAlliance is a partnership under the German Civil Code formed by the law firms NIEDING + BARTH Rechtsanwaltsaktiengesellschaft and TILP Rechtsanwälte.
We are two separate German law firms specializing in the protection of investors’ rights. Both of our firms have been active in the field for more than fifteen years now and are counted among the market leaders for matters governed by the laws on capital investments, and we are ranked among the top attorneys to represent institutional and private investors who have been caused losses. Our cooperation enables us to more effectively serve our clients since our working group of specialized attorneys has a size that is currently not achieved by any other law firm active in this field.
We have gained comprehensive experience in handling large cases; at present, we represent numerous institutional investors and more than 6,000 private investors in the so-called “mass damage claims” Phoenix (www.arge-phoenix.de), AMIS (www.arge-amis.de), AHBR (www.arge-ahbr.de) and DBVI (www.arge-dbvi.de). Taken together, our two law firms have obtained more than one hundred rulings from the supreme court of justice in Germany, the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH, Federal Court of Justice) in the disputes brought before it; these rulings are of fundamental importance where the protection of investors is concerned.
Anyone who has invested funds with the “K1 Group” and into products sold by the group is affected, regardless of whether these investments were placed directly or indirectly with the Group (in the latter case by savings plans, certificates, etc.), and regardless of whether the investors are from Germany or abroad. Since the case involves cross-border issues, it will require complicated legal issues to be addressed both under German law and under international law.
Our project-based collaboration is intended to ensure the optimum protection of the interests of private and institutional investors into K1 products. Our experience shows that it is of the utmost importance to represent as large a number of investors as possible. While it cannot be conclusively determined at present whether or not the “K1” case is a major damage claim in line with the litigation pursued against Phoenix, AMIS & Co., it is nonetheless important – if only for reasons of ensuring the best possible enforcement of our clients’ cases – to bundle the interests of a large group of private and institutional investors. This will increase our ability to assert our case while also allowing all concerned to benefit from cost synergies. Should you wish to retain us, please click here for the corresponding forms.
We would like to warn you, in your own interests, against joining dubious “interest groups”, “victims’ associations”, “investor protection groups” or such like. We highly recommend that you entrust the representation of your interests only to attorneys who have been active in capital market law for many years now, who have a proven track record, and who are comfortable in dealing with cases of this size.
We have developed a lump-sum fee scheme for our clients; please click here for further information. While our proposal may seem higher than that of other law firms, we can assure you that it is worth the price to pay!