Decision in the KapMuG Proceedings Regarding “Frankreich 04”

After more than ten years of lit­ig­a­tion, the Ham­burg Higher Re­gional Court has now is­sued a de­cision in the model in­vestor pro­ceed­ings (“KapMuG”) con­cern­ing the Wöl­bern Frankreich 04 in­vest­ment. The court iden­ti­fied a total of five pro­spectus violations.

At­tor­ney Dr. Susanne Schmidt-​Morsbach, who most re­cently rep­res­en­ted the lead plaintiff, was able to suc­cess­fully con­clude all pro­ceed­ings — with the ex­cep­tion of the lead plaintiff’s case — lead­ing up to this de­cision. The lead plaintiff’s case has since also been suc­cess­fully concluded.

Dr. Schmidt-​Morsbach had taken over rep­res­ent­a­tion of the lead plaintiff after an­other law firm had ori­gin­ally ini­ti­ated the KapMuG pro­ceed­ings and sub­sequently con­cluded all of its own cases.

Over­all, the rul­ing rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant suc­cess for in­vestors, even though it has once again be­come clear that the KapMuG pro­ceed­ings are of lim­ited prac­tical suit­ab­il­ity. Many of the at­tor­neys and judges in­volved were suc­cessors to the ori­ginal panel and, in some cases, were not suf­fi­ciently fa­mil­iar with the pro­ceed­ings. The ex­treme length of the pro­ceed­ings in par­tic­u­lar makes it clear that in­vestors can­not be as­sisted through this route within a reas­on­able timeframe.