DeGiro Financial Complaints Query

M

michaelthebrady

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If you have a financial complaint with DeGiro, under their Irish client agreement, it has to be made to the dutch regulator (KiFiD) rather than the Irish regulator (FSPO). Has anyone done that in the community here? I have gone through the process and wanted to see if others got the same outcome as me which was a non-binding advice from KiFiD that DeGiro could choose to accept or not. In my case they choose not to accept it as it was financially impactful to them to do so. It seems like they have built a regulation approach that allows them to act with impunity in the Irish market so wanted to check in with others to see if they have seen similar results when they went down this process?
 
They can't act with impunity - you complained to the Dutch regulator who did not uphold your complaint in the manner you expected. But that happens all the time, even in Ireland

Without details of your complaint, it is difficult to have an honest opinion on this matter and the resolution
 
jpd said:
They can't act with impunity - you complained to the Dutch regulator who did not uphold your complaint in the manner you expected. But that happens all the time, even in Ireland

Without details of your complaint, it is difficult to have an honest opinion on this matter and the resolution
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Apologies if I did not explain myself correctly. To go back to the start. My issue with DeGiro related to the fact that a company I had stock in that and was held on their platform was taken over. They failed to send on the tender offer details as well as an delisting notification. European takeovers are different in that if you do not respond to the tender offer, you get nothing and your stock goes into limbo.

KiFiD made a non-binding advice in my favour and awarded me full damages for my issue. DeGiro choose not to accept the decision as it was non binding. The reason the decision is non-binding is that KiFiD said that they cannot make a binding one for an Irish citizen living in Ireland who takes a case in the Netherlands. This is what I mean by them being able to act with impunity as you can take a case with KiFiD (which is your only option from the client agreement) and if they don't like the decision then they can always choose to not accept it.

It also leaves me in a bit of bother as my only option seems to take a civil case in the Netherlands to get the enforcement of the KiFiD decision as I have come to the end of the complaints process. Any one else been down this path before?
 
My understanding is that DeGiro is licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland to operate in Ireland so we as a country have some control (I have reached out to them already on this and waiting to hear back as it seems crazy to allow this). The EU allows a company HQ location to be the place where it is regulated so not much we can do there unfortunately and only detailed in the last lage of the Client Agreement. Only finding that as you get into trouble is always a problem but I make no apologies about trying to keep my transaction costs low (most of the Irish brokers are an absolute joke in terms of what they charge).

The other joke here is that DeGiro use ABN Amro for all corporate actions information to their platform and ABN Amro have a no liability condition in all their corporate actions so can never be at fault for missing or incorrect corporate actions. DeGiro is saying it was ABN Amro fault that the tender offer was not provided to me and they have a no liability clause so no one can be blamed.....
 
What sort of limbo are your shares in ?

Do they appear in your Degiro account, but are not tradeable ?

I bought shares in China Mobile and China Telecom a few years ago through Degiro.

Thanks to Donald Trump these shares were banned from trading on US stock markets. Both of these shares in my Degiro account were held in US stock exchanges.

In both cases these shares became untradable in my Degiro account.

In a state of concern, I contacted Degiro to see what was going to happen.

The customer service from Degiro was excellent. They explained that in one case the shares would be sold off using some mechanism and my account would be credited.

In the case of the other shares they would be transferred to the Frankfurt exchange.

They explained that this would take about 6 months.

All the transactions were carried out as promised.


I also had shares in EDF, held in Keytrade Bank. These were nationalised by the French Government.

There was a court case by the EDF workers Union seeking a better price for their shares.

I decided not to accept the French Government offer in case the union case succeeded.

So the deadline for accepting the Government offer expired.

The EDF shares became untradable.

The union case failed. After a period of a few months the limboed shares were removed from my account and the cash offer was credited.

This was a European takeover and the default situation was that when no action was taken, the shares were automatically bought out.
 
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S class said:
What sort of limbo are your shares in ?

Do they appear in your Degiro account, but are not tradeable ?

I bought shares in China Mobile and China Telecom a few years ago through Degiro.

Thanks to Donald Trump these shares were banned from trading on US stock markets. Both of these shares in my Degiro account were held in US stock exchanges.

In both cases these shares became untradable in my Degiro account.

In a state of concern, I contacted Degiro to see what was going to happen.

The customer service from Degiro was excellent. They explained that in one case the shares would be sold off using some mechanism and my account would be credited.

In the case of the other shares they would be transferred to the Frankfurt exchange.

They explained that this would take about 6 months.

All the transactions were carried out as promised.


I also had shares in EDF, held in Keytrade Bank. These were nationalised by the French Government.

There was a court case by the EDF workers Union seeking a better price for their shares.

I decided not to accept the French Government offer in case the union case succeeded.

So the deadline for accepting the Government offer expired.

The EDF shares became untradable.

The union case failed. After a period of a few months the limboed shares were removed from my account and the cash offer was credited.

This was a European takeover and the default situation was that when no action was taken, the shares were automatically bought out.
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Thanks for sharing your experience and my one seems different. My stock was listed on the Xetra market in Germany under German law. Once the tender offer completed the stock delisted so I have the stock in my account and it is the last traded price against it but no ability to trade it on Xetra. It has resided there since.

The company was taken over by private equity. Degiro support told me to wait until the come back on the stock market at some point in the future or try to sell the stock (which has since collapsed) with another broker on an OTC market. The advice to wait and see did not sit well with me as private equity buy and sell companies all the time and their is no guarantee that it would ever get back on the stock market in the future.

I have found DeGiro to be aggressive and rude throughout the process especially the legal team. They have basically denied fault on the missing tender saying that they are a low cost online broker and it is the customer responsible to inform them of tenders offers, not the other way round.They did this until we got to the KiFiD hearing when they said that they should of sent the missing corporate action from ABN Amro which they did infact receive but made a decision not to send. In the hearing with KiFiD when I was explaining that the tender offer coincided with the birth of my only child and an extended hospital stay for my wife so I wasn't following it closely, the legal team laughed as if it was not a viable reason.
 
Thats terrible. There are rules that when there is a takeover that the new owner must buy out all remaining shares. But I suppose they can offer a very low price. I was probably lucky in the case of EDF that the buyer was the French government, who has a good level of honesty.
 
S class said:
Thats terrible. There are rules that when there is a takeover that the new owner must buy out all remaining shares. But I suppose they can offer a very low price. I was probably lucky in the case of EDF that the buyer was the French government, who has a good level of honesty.
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The takeover was completed under German law so even though 98% of investors accepted the tender offer and they delisted the company, there was no buyout of the remaining 2% automatically. There is supposed to be a squeeze out at some point after the takeover but from speaking with the German Regulator BaFin, they don't have to do it. In my mind I was expecting a normal takeover that you would get the check in the post as the new owners moved on but no not in German law. I am learning about German takeover law, Dutch consumer law and the like here. It is an absolute mess and European integration is so long away for investors. The US is streets ahead with their SEC and common law for all territory. Expecting an average investor to go through all this in order to get resolution is ridiculous. I contacted my local MEP on some of the European law stuff and they were absolutely clueless on what a person could do!
 
michaelthebrady said:
The reason the decision is non-binding is that KiFiD said that they cannot make a binding one for an Irish citizen living in Ireland who takes a case in the Netherlands.
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Haven't gone to KiFiD but I would suggest that you contact the European Commission for advice as this case as you have outlined would appear to be a breach of European law.

europa.eu

Your Europe Advice

Your Europe Advice is an advice service on EU rights for everyone, provided by a network of legal experts in all Member States.
europa.eu europa.eu

Hope you make progress with this and that you will update the forum with the outcome
 
llgon said:
Haven't gone to KiFiD but I would suggest that you contact the European Commission for advice as this case as you have outlined would appear to be a breach of European law.

Hope you make progress with this and that you will update the forum with the outcome
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Thanks so much for this! I tried ECC-Net and Ireland are the only European country without a working office that you can contact. I tried CCPC in Bloom House and they told me that they cannot do anything as the Central Bank doesn't regulate them. I tried Charlie Weston in the Independent and told me that he might come back to it but never did. I will come back to you as it progresses as I am in this for the long haul
 
Have you tried appealing the decision to the Dutch regulator on the basis that as its non-binding that DeGiro are ignoring it?
 
daheff said:
Have you tried appealing the decision to the Dutch regulator on the basis that as its non-binding that DeGiro are ignoring it?
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I did inform the regulator as soon as the deadline had passed that they had not adhered to it. He said that there was nothing that they could do but he would try some informal pressure on them. I am open to appealing it but the issue will come back to under Dutch law that the Dutch Regulator can only make binding advice for Dutch citizens and residents.
 
Hi @michaelthebrady, I actually also have a similar case pending with Kifid. I believe I chose the arbitration process and not mediation which means their decision should be binding right? I am based in the UK so not a Dutch citizen neither.
Degiro (and ABN Amro) also did not tender my shares which were being delisted through a mandatory tender offer. I flagged it several times before the official window opened in order for them to be ready. They had 2 weeks to do it and just realized 2 days before the end that Natixis was taking care of the tender and it was not a traditional Euroclear process (apologies for any approximation, not an expert). They ended up not being able to tender the shares (without even trying to contact Natixis I believe). Kifid contacted my recently mentioning they needed another 2 months (beyond the initial 3 months) to finalize their decision.
Any advice from your past experience would be welcome! Thanks!
 
what is the Department saying about the ECC? It’s a national scandal that nobody is talking about. We’ve no strong consumer body.
 
baba92 said:
Hi @michaelthebrady, I actually also have a similar case pending with Kifid. I believe I chose the arbitration process and not mediation which means their decision should be binding right? I am based in the UK so not a Dutch citizen neither.
Degiro (and ABN Amro) also did not tender my shares which were being delisted through a mandatory tender offer. I flagged it several times before the official window opened in order for them to be ready. They had 2 weeks to do it and just realized 2 days before the end that Natixis was taking care of the tender and it was not a traditional Euroclear process (apologies for any approximation, not an expert). They ended up not being able to tender the shares (without even trying to contact Natixis I believe). Kifid contacted my recently mentioning they needed another 2 months (beyond the initial 3 months) to finalize their decision.
Any advice from your past experience would be welcome! Thanks!
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@baba92 Welcome to the DeGiro / KiFiD show! Speaking to KiFiD, I believe that DeGiro have a huge amounts of these cases logged against them and seem to do nothing to change / improve their completely manual corporate actions process.... Worse there seems to be nothing to stop them operating in this EU loophole that they are in.

When I took my Final Complaint to KiFiD, they did what is happening to you. They asked for an additional two months time to review it after the initial 3 months completed. Do not be alarmed but they are really slow. I would recommend you call them and explain your case verbally to them and get a sense of the investigator. I found mine extremely helpful. I will say that this process is really slow and long. I put my case into KifiD in March 2023 and I only got a verdict at the end of January 2024. DeGiro are always delaying the process saying that they are trying to resolve it amicably when they are just delaying.

The hearing part if something to prepared well for. It will be a video call with two people from KifiD and I had three lawyers from the DeGiro legal team against me.

From a curiosity point of view, in the final complaint process from DeGiro, what reason did they offer for not giving you full compensation on your tender offer?
 
DeeKie said:
what is the Department saying about the ECC? It’s a national scandal that nobody is talking about. We’ve no strong consumer body.
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I spoke with the CPCC about it and they were not able to do anytime. I am not sure what department you are taking about. Apparently ECC-NET for Ireland is back operational but they have no phone or email to contact them and when you used the online submission process, it errors out!! I have really given up on them.....
 
A disgrace. You should get on to Conor Pope in the Irish Times. Or get Joe Duffy on it
 
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