Rabobank is not guilty of the bankruptcy of travel organization OAD. In September 2013, the bank was allowed to cancel its credit agreement with the Twente travel company. This was decided by the District Court of Central Netherlands on Wednesday.
After terminating the agreement, OAD quickly ran into financial difficulties. A few weeks later, on September 25, 2013, the travel company went bankrupt. Nearly 1,600 people lost their jobs. The sudden bankruptcy of one of the largest Dutch travel organizations caused a shock in the tourism sector. Parts of the OAD group have made a new start under new owners. For example, the former subsidiary SRC now independently sells cultural tours.
The verdict of Wednesday was preceded by years of legal proceedings. In 2015, the former shareholders of OAD, the Ter Haar entrepreneurial family from Overijssel, filed a lawsuit against Rabobank together with the bankruptcy trustees of the company. They felt that the house bank had not given them enough time and space to put together a rescue plan for OAD. For example, the owners of the company were negotiating with a group of investors from Twente for the takeover of OAD’s bus branch.
Bankruptcy inevitable
According to the Ter Haar family, Rabobank unnecessarily caused the bankruptcy by demanding a capital injection of 7.5 million euros and canceling the credit agreement. The former shareholders demanded compensation of 67 million euros; that was the value of the OAD shares at the time of the bankruptcy.
The court now states that the bank is not liable for the damage that OAD claims to have suffered. The bank does not have to pay compensation. “Even if Rabobank had agreed to an extension of the time to reach an agreement with the Twente investors, bankruptcy had not yet been averted,” the court said.
According to the judge, the financial problem was “serious and unsolvable”. OAD had problems with travel group TUI, for which the company from Twente sold holidays, and with the Stichting Garantiefonds Reisgelden, which compensates customers if their travel agency goes bankrupt.
An earlier session in the OAD-Rabobank case had a remarkable witness. In 2013, then King’s Commissioner Ank Bijleveld (CDA, later Minister of Defense in the Rutte III cabinet) mediated between the bank and the travel company. OAD had Bijleveld call Rabobank to request a postponement of the rescue deadline. The travel organization claimed that this was promised to Bijleveld. She confirmed this in court, but the court found that there was not enough evidence for this.
Also read: Oad wants Minister Bijleveld as a witness
Fleet of coaches
OAD was founded in 1924 and traded since 1942 under the company name Overijsselsche Autobusdienst OAD Under director Joop ter Haar, the company grew into one of the largest travel groups in the Netherlands. OAD Reizen organized holidays by plane and car, the group owned more than two hundred travel agencies under the Globe name and the group had a large fleet of coaches.
Since 2008, the company has experienced financial difficulties: due to the economic crisis, fewer people went on holiday than before. Moreover, more and more consumers skipped the travel agency in the shopping street and booked a holiday directly via the internet. OAD is said to have responded insufficiently to technical innovations. In the period 2010-2011, the group had to write off 24 million euros on a finished ICT project.
A spokesperson for Rabobank says in an initial response to the verdict: “Rabobank is pleased that the book can be closed with this.” That seems premature. The former shareholders and the trustees of OAD reported on Wednesday that they will appeal against the verdict. They are “disappointed” and believe that the court is basing its judgment on “incorrect figures and assumptions”. “The court also completely ignored the duty of care that a bank has towards a large, loyal business customer who has fulfilled all obligations until the day of bankruptcy,” said a spokesperson.
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