- I do not believe that the decision on the dividend was made in the right way, says bankruptcy trustee Pierre Pettersson.
Since 2019, the plus editorial staff has followed Rive's law firm, which has received repeated criticism for misleading price information.
During the spring, the agency was declared bankrupt and in connection with this, about a hundred customers made financial claims against the agency.
Refuses to pay back dividends
Most of the share dividend made so far this year has gone to Rive's parent company *, which disputes the bankruptcy trustee's repayment claim.
- When the parent company received its share of the dividend on February 1, there were no signs of media problems or other consequential problems at all, states the parent company's representative Richard Olsson.
According to him, Rive also has a debt of just over SEK 2 million to the parent company.
- The parent company bought shares in Rive for SEK 400,000 on February 1, which indicates that they could not predict what would happen a few months later, Olsson states.
4 million has gone to the parent company
According to the trustee in bankruptcy, the parent company received a dividend of SEK 3 million on February 2, and a further SEK 1 million on March 6.
According to the Swedish Companies Registration Office, Richard Olsson himself owned all the shares in the parent company on 15 February, something he himself considers irrelevant.
Olsson believes that the financial problems that eventually arose were due to a combination of media drives and a reluctance on the part of the subsidiary to implement a number of improvements that the parent company demanded.
The fact that a close relative of Olsson sat on Rive's board at the time of the bankruptcy and for several years was also a member of the parent company's board, Olsson does not want to comment.
Liabilities are much larger than assets
On March 23, the agency was declared in liquidation and on April 12 in bankruptcy.
According to the estate register, there are currently assets of approximately 2 million and liabilities of just over 19 million in the bankruptcy estate, but the sums may change during the bankruptcy investigation.
The Swedish Consumer Agency has previously directed a fine of one million kronor against the bankruptcy estate, but that case is now closed, as the authority considers the chance of receiving any dividend from the estate to be too small.
Plus has previously reported that Rive has sued a large number of its own clients in disputes over the price of the legal services.
In the disputes that are still ongoing, it will be reviewed whether the claims are justified before any lawsuit is pursued, according to the bankruptcy trustee.
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