A Fintelegram Guest Post
Next court defeat for the now-closed Dutch payment processor Payvision. Its founder, Rudolf Booker, positioned Payvision as a laundromat for scammers and operators of porn and gambling sites. In 2018, ING acquired Payvision with a valuation of €360 million. Booker had to leave in April 2020. Andre Valkenburg became the new CEO and continued running Payvision as Booker did. Valkenburg sued against this claim and lost.
After the acquisition of Payvision by ING in 2018, Andre Valkenburg took over as CEO on May 1, 2020, following the not-so-voluntary resignation of founders and directors Rudolf Booker, Gijs van de Weegh, and Cheng Liem Chi.
Apparently, ING had finally realized the true nature of the Payvision business. Then in October 2021, ING announced the closure of Payvision. Why ING had not noticed the dirty deals in the course of due diligence is anyone’s guess. But, likely, then-CEO Ralph Hamers and his top risk manager, now-CEO Steven van Rijswijk, were looking firmly in the other direction.
The European Fund Recovery Initiative (EFRI) and its lawyers represent hundreds of victims of scam brokers who were clients of Payvision. These victims made deposits to the scam platforms via Payvision and trusted this regulated payment processor. EFRI had alleged that Payvision continued with its dirty dealings under new CEO Andre Valkenburg. Valkenburg sued EFRI over that claim – and lost the suit.
The Durch national Andre Valkenburg was represented by Austrian law firm Binder Groesswang, which also most recently represented Russian crypto payment processor Mercuryo in a SLAPP action against EFRI and FinTelegram. Binder Groesswang also lost the Mercuryo lawsuit.
Valkenburg’s misfortune was that Dutch Central Bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), had also found in an investigation that the suspicious transactions continued under Andre Valkenburg‘s leadership. Based on the document submitted by EFRI, the court considered it proven that Valkenburg continued the course of his predecessor Rudolf Booker.
The question is when ING will finally clean up the Payvision disgrace and properly compensate the victims caused by its subsidiary Payvision.