Compensation for Alpine investors by year
timeline
Eight years after the bankruptcy of the construction company Alpine, headquartered in Wals (Flachgau), 380 investors who buy Alpine bonds from BAWAG will receive compensation. After deducting all costs, around 2.4 million euros flowed.
This has now been announced by the Chamber of Labour, which has taken BAWAG to court. Since Alpine’s bankruptcy, AK says it has obtained compensation totaling around EUR 4.3 million in court and obtained it through out-of-court negotiations with various banks.
Other procedures are still ongoing
Of the original 19 class action lawsuits, six lawsuits against several major banks are still pending and there is no end in sight to the ongoing processes, according to the AK.
Many banks sold bonds from the construction company in 2010-2012. According to the AK, investors are often not sufficiently informed about the high risk associated with the bonds.
Bonds 2013 worthless in one fell swoop
Because of Alpine’s bankruptcy in 2013, the bonds were worth nothing from one day to the next. In 2015, AK and the litigation financier Omni Bridgeway brought class action lawsuits for around 1,500 people against several major Austrian banks.
The long duration of the process and the very high legal costs would show that consumers could hardly enforce their rights themselves and that the regulations for dealing with mass damage are inadequate, says AK lawyer Martin Goger. The AK therefore welcomes the new directive for collective actions, which must be implemented in Austrian law by the beginning of 2023.