Several Pels Rijcken civil-law notaries are being sued by the Financial Supervision Office (BFT) for failing to supervise their fraudulent fellow civil-law notary Frank Oranje. The BFT announced this on Wednesday after an extensive investigation into the fraud in which Orange, former chairman of Pels Rijcken’s board, stole at least 11 million euros from customers.
Orange committed his fraud alone, according to the BFT supervisor. But his colleagues failed because they did not supervise the joint trust account from which Orange funneled money. They also did not apply their own office rules. The BFT wants the disciplinary judge to look into this. Due to a duty of confidentiality, the supervisor does not want to say how many civil-law notaries are involved.
The BFT investigation shows that things at Pels Rijcken’s notary branch were not in order for a long time. Pels Rijcken – state attorney at law since 1969 – therefore has to implement improvement measures. For example, there must be an open office culture ‘where colleagues dare to talk to each other’. The financial-administrative process must also be adapted so that transactions are better controlled.
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Cancellation
Pels Rijcken decided last week, when it was already known internally with the results of the BFT investigation, to dissolve the entire notary branch before 1 July 2022. Board chairman Sandra van Heukelom spoke to the staff of a “drastic, intense and sad” decision.
Orange’s fraud is the largest ever in the Dutch legal profession and the notarial profession. According to the BFT, measures are needed for all notary offices to ‘maintain public confidence in the notarial profession’ and to ‘reduce the chances of a recurrence’, including with regard to guaranteeing compliance with laws and regulations. The regulator also believes that it should learn its own lessons from the fact that a civil-law notary from such a prominent office could commit fraud for so long. For example, large notary offices will be examined more frequently.
From research by NRC it turned out that Orange had already set up the first foundation with which he committed fraud in 1996. The BFT reports that it has been able to establish that “at least from 2003” money has been stolen from customers by Orange. When asked, acting director Yolanda de Groot says that the BFT cannot make any statements about the period before 2003. Pels Rijcken previously reported that not all damage suffered by Orange has been compensated because some files could no longer be reconstructed.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/notaries-pels-rijcken-before-disciplinary-judge-for-fraud-by-their-colleague-frank-oranje/
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