Former swimming star Reggie de Jong, after her swimming career, was the victim of an international conspiracy by large industrialists who, together with certain financial institutions, defended themselves against Ms De Jong after she uncovered shady dealings. She clung to this case as a victim, as a close friend of another now deceased victim, also fighting against corruption. Legal proceedings are still ongoing, but Reggie de Jong nevertheless agreed to speak to us briefly, literally at a high level, on the 21st floor of EY in Amsterdam, during the Behavioral Risk Congress 2022.
It was a very complex corruption scandal of which Reggie was the victim. After much research, she managed to get all the information from all parties. Something that no one will be able to do, according to her, because of certain things that have come to light and that this case has hardly appeared in the newspapers. Her motivation came partly from the fact that she herself was a victim and also because the funds were intended for a very large international project, and for a social project. Other people who have invested in this project have also considered it a life goal, including a friend of Reggie’s who suffered from MS and who sadly passed away.
The parties she is fighting against are her Airbus, Deutsche Bank, Clearstream and Deutsche Börse who according to her evidence formed a network criminal organisation, i.e. did network corruption. And this corruption could only really develop because they collaborated with each other. They are all international parts, and that is also the complexity. By what standard do you plead and which judge should you go to?
Reggie is now trying to make it a criminal case in the Netherlands, because its head office is in the Netherlands and the damage therefore took place there. Reggie’s bank is based in the Netherlands. Airbus is headquartered in the Netherlands, registered in Amsterdam and has an office in Leiden. Deutsche Börse and Clearstream asked to be sued under German law, Deutsche Bank asked to be sued under English law. Deutsche Bank also tried to say that the Netherlands lacked jurisdiction to hear the case in the Netherlands. This part, Reggie won on and the Netherlands is competent.
Now begins the huge battle of what happened and what did not happen. Of course, we have heard all kinds of stories today. On the one hand, it is about corruption, integrity, and also of course a lot of nonsense like the stretching of procedures, the ability to jump when opponents’ lawyers file untruths. So what is actually possible and legal. You are allowed to file untruths if, as a lawyer, you do not know you are doing so, or could not know. So that means these Southern Axis lawyers can lie on behalf of their clients, file falsehoods, and they’re not prosecuted for it.
But since Reggie has assembled such an impressive record of evidence, she is convinced that it will be very difficult for the other parties to prevail and continues to believe that she will win. It should be noted, however, that during the last trials and appeals against these parties, they came with 20 lawyers. And of course, not everyone can do that, so the other side ends up with only one lawyer. Reggie sees herself as an extension of her own attorney, as she knows all the details of this case. In fact, she also researched all of this herself.
Reggie is bringing this case in the hopes of obtaining damages and civil liability. You can only do this if you prove the causal link between the damages and what each party did separately. But these parties worked with each other and not just these parties. There is a whole circle of international parties around them. So it makes no sense to start bringing them into a civil case, because then you can’t prove causation, because they’re behind yet another party. Reggie also wants to address this topic and certainly doesn’t want to leave it there.
Parties like these always get away with this corruption, and that’s because it’s very complex, international, and because you’re constantly bullied and threatened in the hopes that you’ll give up. You have to have perseverance to fight this, you have to have guts, you also have to have been fooled yourself to stay motivated and have a very strong sense of integrity. Reggie says she thought, “But if I don’t do something about it, then they’ll always get away with it, and there’ll always be the duped, like me and all the people around me also duped by that. So she thinks that’s why she needs to move forward to reduce the share of corruption in the world, not just for her, but for the whole world.
