CYPRUS: ‘Duped’ BOCY shareholders to sue

The old shareholders of Bank of Cyprus, who saw their stakes diluted to less than 0.5% last year and new shares issued to depositors in exchange for equity, known as the ‘bail in’, plan to sue the bank and the resolution authorities for their losses and to restore their rights.
Heading the association of nearly 88,000 old BOCY shareholders, Archbishop Chrysostomos said Monday’s meeting drafted a petition that will be handed to President Nicos Anastasiades.
The association had earlier announced that it wanted the restoration of the value of their pre-bailin equity stakes in the bank by recognising a 1.9 bln euro profit arising from BOCY’s reluctant takeover of ex-Laiki bank’s operations, or the granting of property owned by the bank in the occupied areas, held in the lender’s books at zero value.
The association’s legal advisor Kypros Chrysostomides said that “it is more than obvious that the treatment the Bank of Cyprus’ old shareholders were subjected to is illegal, based on both the Cypriot constitution and European law, and now based on company law because the Bank of Cyprus is arbitrarily going ahead with a capital increase at the expense of every shareholder, old and new alike.”