• OUT-OF-COURT SETTLEMENTS. Our in-depth knowledge of this particularly specialised field, together with our successes in different judicial rulings, allow us to implement strategies aimed at securing out-of-court settlements. We take an integrated approach to securities dispute management, to anticipate and provide a response to possible client weaknesses with regard to the financial institution (leverage, refinancing, etc.). This approach also includes, obviously, internal and external communication and the design and execution, together with the client, of the best negotiation strategies at any given time. Proper management of negotiation timescales means that we achieve longer-term results, but ones that are more satisfactory than those the press sometimes report in similar cases.
This integrated approach to dispute management means that we have arranged settlements that have had a great impact on the Spanish market, for example that with Citi Group (for 2,700 investors and for a sum of 78 million euros, in respect of the sale of Lehman Bros. and Icelandic products), and numerous individual and collective settlements with different financial institutions with regard to the sale of products affected by the Bernard L. Madoff fraud, Lehman Bros. structured products with a capital guarantee, Lehman Bros. structured products with no capital guarantee and products from Icelandic banks.
• PROMOTION OF CHANGES IN LEGISLATION. Jausas has played an active role in promoting initiatives from the Spanish Senate and the European Securities and Markets Authority for the incorporation into Spanish law of the principles established by the CESR with regard to sales advice (our practice was behind the Senate motion on swaps passed in October 2010).
• LITIGATION. Our great experience of judicial and arbitration proceedings has been rewarded with a number of judgements that have set a precedent in ruling, for the first time and quite clearly, that financial institutions selling products within the context of an advisory relationship have a duty not only to provide sufficient prior information on the nature and risks of the instruments, but also to carry out subsequent monitoring. This has given rise to 1st Instance judgements ruling that investors be compensated with 100% of the principal invested in some cases, and 80% in others, or that swaps were null and void.
Our vision is for the client, when they so wish, to participate in our pledge for quality through fees based on both fixed and variable components, a reflection of our commitment to success in the cases with which we are entrusted. As far as possible, we bring together different plaintiffs in the same suit against a financial entity, so as to reduce fees and so that the evidence supplied by some is of benefit to others.
PRODUCT TYPES
• Derivatives with or without capital guarantees
• Derivatives linked to a basket of shares with or without Worst Of options
• Interest rate swaps
• Inflation swaps
• Equity swaps
• Forex swaps (forwards, with or without barrier options, knock-in/knock out options and other synthetic forwards)
• Credit assignment agreements with recourse (factoring)
• Credit assignment agreements without recourse (factoring)
• Mortgages
• Guarantee policies
• Mutual funds
• Structured deposits
