Lawyers acting for victims of the “Spanish Enquity Release Package”, as advertised by Sydbank (Schweiz) AG, have formally filed a civil suit against this bank, alongside Nykredit (Realkredit) A/S, for statutory voidness and illegality of the named product, on the following grounds:

– Sydbank (Schweiz) teamed up with Nykredit Realkredit A/S, a Danish lender operating through a branch office in Marbella. Both banks contend that they provided separate services and that Nykredit stepped in to lend to British citizens as a result of a “introduction” made by Sydbank, and that was about it as far as their relationship went (it almost seemed as if victims of the Equity Release victims had thrown a party where both banks met each other…getting on famously thereafter).

– Sydbank (Schweiz) was and has never been registered to operate legally in Spain, whether via the Bank of Spain or the CNMV. Notwithstanding such serious infringement, they offered their services to the Spanish general public directly, and through a number of IFAs; they actually opened a branch office in Fuengirola yet failing, as expected, to even secure a municipal opening license from the Fuengirola Town Hall.

– Sydbank (Schweiz) offered a product that, in its inception, violated public policy: it was designed to reduce, ilegally, Spanish Wealth and Inheritance Taxes.

– Sydbank and Nykredit tempted British peaceful property owners to trangress the law, to do what was injurious to the law, the community, banking code of ethics and the very rights of their clients.

Mads Petersen and Jorn Gregersen were both conscious –yet deliberately witheld  information they were only privy to- that the investment product PEERLESS SICAV, of which Sydbank was “promoter, investment manager and most important distributor of the Company”, in any of its 3 Subfunds, did not return more than 0.58% in 2006, and actually less in 2007, when 2 and 1 of the couples, respectively, took the product out.

Corporate rogues Petersen and Gregersen not only failed to advise their clients that the product was not suitable for them (never mind the inheritance tax avoidance illicit aim or the lack of regulatory clearance) but, in a display of extraordinary trickery, made them believe that the SICAV yield could actually pay for the cost of Nykredit mortgage loan, plus Sydbank’s commission and lastly, leave the clients a remaining disposable income sum (in simple layman terms, knowing that 0.58% would hardly pay off 6% they still concealed it, with catastrophic effects).

– Finally, Sydbank (Schweiz) AG and Nykredit Realkredit A/S dishonestly tried to disguise the fact that they are actually partners in Denmark, that Sydbank channels all of its loan business through Nykredit (page 4), against payment of a commission, and that Sydbank’s CEO, Karen Frosig, is in fact a director of Nykredit (pg 12).

Lawyers acting for clients have requested that the Spanish Equity Release, comprising the “Business Connection Agreement” (euphemism coined by Sydbank to refer to a regular bank account contract and an associated Peerless SICAV product) and any associated contracts (including Belize companies, as part of Sydbank’s concealmente technology), as well as the Spanish Nykredit mortgage loan, are rendered void ab initio , following the principles quod nullum est, nullum producit effectum (that which is a nullity, produces no effect) and simul stabunt, simul cadent (they will stand together or they will fall together)