Housing association Vestia conducts discussions with accountants KPMG and Deloitte to reach a settlement concerning their role in the derivative scandal at the housing corporation.
This is confirmed by spokespersons of the parties to NU.nl after reporting by The Telegraph. According to the newspaper there is also a settlement of 84 million euros on the table, but this is not confirmed.
The planned lawsuit would take place in the first week of February, but was moved to March 31.
Vestia ran into problems in 2012 due to so-called derivatives, financial products in which risks such as an interest rate rise or fall can be hedged. With the controversial contracts, the housing foundation actually gambled on an interest rate rise while the interest rate actually fell.
Vestia had to focus heavily on the products and was forced to buy the products for almost 2 billion euros from banks. Other corporations then had to invest nearly 700 million euros to keep Vestia afloat.
Vestia blames the accountants for having issued the unqualified audits for the annual financial statements.
This summer, the housing foundation, which manages around 64,000 homes, settled for 175 million euros with Deutsche Bank. According to Vestia, the bank had a large share in Vestia’s derivatives problem.
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