The case

The Banque d'Orient was founded in Athens by Royal Decree of 7 December 1904. Its capital was 10,000,000 francs, in 80,000 bearer shares of 125 gold francs each D01. The initiative came from the National Bank of Greece and the capital from the German Nationalbank für Deutschland. It had agencies at Constantinople, Salonica, Alexandria, Cairo and Hamburg D02.

In 1910 the shares were introduced on the Paris Bourse through the Comptoir National d'Escompte de Paris D04. By 1931 the capital had reached 35,000,000 gold francs in 280,000 shares. Share no. 190378, issued in Athens on 1 July 1910, is the title on which the action rests D05.

In 1932 the National Bank absorbed the Banque d'Orient. The merger contract, deed 147611/1932, was published in the Government Gazette on 31 December 1932 D10. Its terms are the heart of the case. NBG takes on, as mandatary, the special liquidation of the assets (Term IV). It keeps an interest-bearing running account named "Banque d'Orient, Liquidation Account", at 7 % interest, with statements published every six months (Term VI). When the liquidation ends, it closes the account (Term VII) and distributes the final balance to the holders of the 280,000 shares (Term VIII).

The account was opened. It was kept in a bound ledger, the "Katholikon", with every page certified by two NBG employees and entries to August 1938 D14. For each share an advance of 150 and 50 drachmas was paid. In May 1933 NBG's legal department explained that the 150 drachmas were a partial return of share capital and the 50 drachmas the price of the clientele D13.

Since 2012 NBG has argued in every court that the liquidation ended on 28 December 1936 with a final statement, and that the Banque d'Orient has not existed since. The documents of that month say otherwise.

On 30 June 1936 a statement of the liquidation was drawn up and published D18. On 23 December 1936 the special liquidators record in their minutes an instruction from NBG's management: the work stops and the staff are dismissed D20. The minutes of the last sessions mention pending lawsuits and uncollected claims. They contain no final account, no distribution balance sheet and no finding that the work was complete D21.

The document NBG relies on is a "Statement at 28 December 1936", drawn up on 29 December and unsigned. NBG says it was published in La Bourse Égyptienne in October 1937. Asked to certify that issue, the Bibliothèque nationale de France replied that it could not D22. No final balance sheet of the liquidation was ever filed with the companies registry, as the Ministry of Development certified in 2013 D44.

If the liquidation had ended in December 1936, the following documents should not exist.

In 1939 Westminster Bank in London wrote to NBG about "Banque d'Orient in Liquidation", asking for the liquidation accounts D27. On 28 November 1939 the Greek Ministry of Finance wrote to NBG "as liquidator of the Banque d'Orient", asking how the capital was being returned to shareholders D29. In 1939 the Court of Audit held that the State owed the Banque d'Orient 1,482,042 drachmas. NBG challenged that decision before the Council of State, expressly as liquidator of the bank in liquidation, and its petition was dismissed on 8 April 1940 D30. NBG's own report for the years 1941 to 1944 speaks of a liquidation still in progress D32.

Abroad, the shares went on being held and taxed as property. In 1951 Crédit Lyonnais in Marseille certified the deposit of the bank's shares D34, and certificates in the archive bear Paris stamps of 1951 and 1954 D35. In January 1956 the French Treasury collected inheritance tax on seven Banque d'Orient shares, certificates that are today in NBG's Historical Archive D36. On 17 February 1965 NBG's Egyptian branches wrote to Athens about winding down the liquidation office and the "still pending court cases" D37.

In 2008 the Legal Council of the State advised, in the case of another pre-war bank, that a company in liquidation keeps its legal personality until the liquidation is lawfully completed, however many decades have passed D39.

From 2011 bearer shareholders asked NBG and the authorities for the merger contract and the liquidation accounts. The Ministry of Development certified that no document on the completion of the merger or the liquidation had ever been filed D44. The notarial archive and the General State Archives replied that deed 147611 was not in their collections. On 2 March 2014 NBG's Board Secretariat answered that the merger contract "is not located in the bank's archive" D47. In 2015 NBG stated in writing that it had no obligation to keep the liquidation account.

Among the documents NBG produced in court is a version of the 30 June 1936 statement bearing the signature of Ioannis Drosopoulos, then Governor of NBG D18. It is the only signed statement of the liquidation in the file.

In 2016 the shareholders asked Emily J. Will, a board-certified forensic document examiner in the United States, to compare that signature with genuine signatures of Drosopoulos from 1912 to 1931 D49. Her report concludes that the signature on the statement is not his. The report was filed in the civil proceedings. No court has examined it, and no court-appointed expert has been asked to.

The shareholders first went to court in 2013, asking for liquidators of the Banque d'Orient to be appointed.

In September 2016 bearers of the Shareholders' Community sued NBG on the basis of the contract. Other bearers joined the proceedings.

The ledger, the 1939 and 1940 State documents, the 1956 French tax record, the 1965 letter and the forensic report have been filed with the court. The trial continues. Given the intransigence of those responsible, we are certain that the case will go through the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.