ABN Amro ordered to repay family €11 million in criminal fraud case

ABN Amro must repay half of the money a Rotterdam family lost from their ABN Amro bank accounts through embezzlement and fraud committed by a family friend who acted as their financial adviser, the court ruled in an almost unnoticed verdict in 2014. The bank has to repay 11 million euros to the Van der Sluijs family, the Financieele Dagblad reports. Between 2001 and 2011 prime suspect Frits Penning managed to divert more than 20 million euros from the Van der Sluijs family's accounts into 10 companies under his Frits Penning BV, without ABN Amro sounding the alarm. According to the judge, the bank violated its duty of care by processing orders from someone who had no permission to access the family's fortune and paid the money to "obviously incorrect beneficiaries", according to the 2014 verdict. Penning and his companies were sentenced to pay the family 16,974,000 euros in advance compensation by the civil court. His criminal case must still be tried. He confessed to his fraud. One of Penning's accomplices, Robert ter M., is appearing in court on Thursday. M. was the director of one of Penning's companies. He stands charged of laundering money through the business.