DeGiro Financial Complaints Query

Thanks very much Michael for sharing your experience, it’s extremely helpful. It does not look very promising from what I understand, even if Kifid’s decision goes in my favour.

Basically they said that because the tender process had not been initiated and centralized by the company itself / Euroclear but through a third party (bank) they were not able to participate to the tender. This means in my view « we or the custodian have not been in contact with the bank organizing the tender process ».
Shareholders who are with other brokers were able to participate to the tender so I don’t see why they could not. In regards to the compensation they mentioned I still have my shares and I could have sold them before. Shares were already quite illiquid, they became even more illiquid after, they only contacted me on the last day, a few hours before the end of the tender to mention it was impossible to tender. Finally, I was willing to tender them, not to sell them. Very simple.
 
Hi @michaelthebrady, I finally received the decision yesterday, they mentioned they did not need to organize a conference call and they actually ruled in my favor. However as you previously flagged the decision is non binding due to the Dutch vs UK law issue. I have asked Kifid how to best proceed going forward since they said they were closing the case without giving any instructions or advice. I wonder if it is worth at some point going back to DEGIRO with the decision and also maybe going to ABN Amro and Natixis (bank organizing the tender last year). Was there any development on your side?
If anyone has any recommendation please shout. Thanks!
 
@baba92 First of all, DeGiro will be notified of the decision as well so be in no doubt there. Is there a time limit to action it as part of the advice? Mine gave DeGiro 30 days to action it. I think you may have to give them some time.

If DeGiro do not action it, I would go back to KiFiD again and tell them. They maybe able to apply some informal pressure on them.

If they still do not respond to that pressure (as was the case in mine issue) then you may have to go to the courts to get resolution. Some people have told me you can go to your home court (UK) or you will have to do a case in the Netherlands and get a Dutch lawyer who specializes in Financial Services. How much is at stake here? The small claims court might be an option to consider if your amount is below 15k.
 
Again thanks for the great response. I have not seen anywhere in Kifid answer a time limit action. EDIT: they actually gave 4 weeks to DEGIRO.
I will follow your advice and wait a bit. Stake is 1k (I thought the case would be much faster) so I am not going to engage a lot of upfront expense here but I am keen to push as these people are not taking their responsibilities.
 
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Just to let people know that I got the issue resolved in case people were interested or it comes up for other users in the future. KIFID allowed DeGiro to appeal the judgement after they didn't accept the initial one. We had to wait another 9 months for that to be scheduled due to a lack of English speaking mediators so had another hearing this time with 5 staff from KiFID. This time everyone agrees to be bound by the decision. They took 90 days but basically agreed verbatim with the original judgement which was a relief. They gave DeGiro 3 weeks to process the sale and compensation which they just completed. This was an epic 3 year struggle but got there in the end and hopefully someone reading it can either avoid it or use this to get fair compensation.....
 
Hi,

I used to be in the same situation: a non-binding decision from Kifid in my favour despite the fact that I had specifically requested a binding decision. DeGiro failed to pay. After 4 years, I went to Trustpilot and posted five 1-star reviews, one review per DeGiro locations (.nl, .pt, .es, .it, .fr). It worked! even though it now seems DeGiro managed to get my reviews removed.

The dishonesty of these people is just staggering. I remember the online hearing in 2021. There were 2 people who introduced themselves as legal representatives of DeGiro BV. Kifid found in my favour in a decision againt DeGiro BV (as clearly marked on the decision). I then discovered years later that DeGiro BV had ceased to exist more than a month before the hearing... I believe the "representatives" too believed Kifid would issue a binding decision, and had planned to argue later that the decision was against a defunct company and therefore void. It is also at that time that I discovered that Flatex Degiro was using the license of the defunct DeGiro BV to (unlawfully) operate on the UK market. It took months and many emails for the UK Financial Conduct Authority to act and correct the defective register. It just shows DeGiro's blatant disregard for regulations... (and therefore people)

Good luck with them.
 
@Inval2 I was shocked at how badly DeGiro operated once we got under the covers. I view them as a regional broker who is providing services to way too large a market and they are out of their depth. I cannot believe that the European Union lets them operate like that. The EU is one of the most regulated places on the planet but seems any goes in the financial markets space.....

Just to highlight how out of their depth that they are, DeGiro processes every corporate action for all the stocks they cover (takeover / rights issue etc) with an email from ABN Amro on the news and then they email it out to the impacted users and finally process the response manually. This is a website serving 4 million customer across the 25 plus countries of Europe. Stay away!
 
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