NORWAY: Deficient Management of Mutual Funds

Thursday March 5 2020

In a class action brought by the Norwegian Consumer Council as class representative for 180 000 unitholders in three mutual funds managed by DNB Asset Management AS, the Supreme Court found, like the Court of Appeal, that the unitholders were entitled to a reduction of the management fee.

After an individual interpretation of the fund’s statutes and other investor information, it was accepted that the management of the funds had not been in accordance with the agreement entered into with the unitholders. The funds had not been managed in a way that gave the unitholders the financial risk exposure – and thus the opportunity to yields beyond the funds’ reference index – for which they had paid. The conditions for a price reduction were met, although it was not possible to demonstrate a market price for the deficient performance. The price reduction was set to 0.8 percent of the individual group member’s unit.

DNB are required to refund the 180,000 investors around $37 million for paying for management services they did not receive.

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