In May 2024, Horten strongly condemned now former partner Nicolai Dyhr’s statements in TV2's programme series “The Black Swan” and discontinued the cooperation with him. Consequently, Horten’s board of directors decided to initiate an external investigation of the matter.
Horten can now publish the results of the investigation.
The external investigation was conducted by attorney, partner and PhD in insolvency law, Birgitte Jørgensen, DAHL Law Firm. She assesses that Nicolai Dyhr may have had a conflict of interest in several cases, and that he has thus potentially failed to fulfil his obligations as a trustee. According to the investigation, there is no basis for concluding that Nicolai Dyhr deliberately intended to deprive the estate administration of assets. Nor did he obtain a financial gain for unauthorised persons to the detriment of the creditors of the estate.
At the same time, the investigator notes that no reason has been found to criticise other employees or the work culture at Horten.
In the external investigation, Horten has gone through an extensive data extraction of more than half a million of Nicolai Dyhr’s e-mails from the period 2014-2024. In the investigation, a number of matters have been identified which, according to the investigator, confirm her criticism of Nicolai Dyhr’s judgement and objectivity as a trustee. No basis has been found in the data extraction for assuming that Nicolai Dyhr has committed any criminal offences, fraud or has acted in his own financial interest, just as no reason has been found to criticise other employees at Horten.
Horten takes note of the criticism and takes it into account.
Horten’s response to the criticism of Nicolai Dyhr
The investigation, which includes 12 cases, criticises Nicolai Dyhr’s conduct in four of the cases. Horten will now further assess the implications of this and will, where appropriate, reach out directly to affected parties to enable them to consider their legal position in this connection.
Horten is in dialogue with relevant authorities regarding the situation.
New initiatives
Based on the course of events, the external investigation and the review of e-mails, Horten has adopted a number of new initiatives as it is crucial for Horten that all partners and employees always act in accordance with the obligations applicable to a law firm and act according to Horten’s values.
Among the initiatives are new internal guidelines for the administration of bankruptcy estates, in addition to those generally applicable in legislation, the rules on the code of conduct of lawyers, etc., which we of course require our partners and employees to follow.
In addition, measures are implemented to ensure increased control of new clients and cases, strengthened compliance guidelines and increased access control for guests visiting Horten for meetings.
As previously announced, Horten has recruited attorney Troels Tuxen, who comes with extensive experience from the insolvency law area. He will be the new team leader of the Insolvency and Reconstruction team at Horten’s headquarters in Hellerup and will work with the department to ensure that both case management and culture are aligned with Horten’s values.
Statements by Horten’s COO
Based on the conclusions of the investigation, Horten’s COO Anders Bager Jensen states:
“It is important that we have now gained a closer insight into the facts of the matter, based on these investigations. On behalf of Horten, I want to apologise for the fact that we have had a partner who has not acted as should be expected of him. At the same time, I am pleased that no reason has been found to criticise other employees or the work culture at Horten. We value the trust of clients and the outside world and will take the necessary steps to ensure that this trust is maintained.
He characterises Nicolai Dyhr as an employee who acted on his own.
“The investigation confirms our assumption that Nicolai Dyhr acted on his own without the employees around him having the full overview of the individual cases. As a company, we can never fully protect ourselves against an individual choosing to act contrary to our values. But with the range of new initiatives, we strengthen the internal processes to best prevent it from happening again.”
Background
Thursday, 2 May 2024, Horten’s management received an e-mail from TV2 regarding statements made by then partner and attorney at Horten, Nicolai Dyhr, in the programme series “The Black Swan”. The e-mail contained written extracts from the recorded conversations and general information about the impending programme series, later published on 28 may 2024.
It was immediately clear to Horten’s management that these were statements that in no way reflect how individuals at Horten - including a partner and attorney - should behave, and Horten therefore chose to discontinue the cooperation with Nicolai Dyhr.
Horten has unequivocally condemned the statements by Nicolai Dyhr and clearly stated that his behaviour has been completely incompatible with Horten’s values.
Birgitte Jørgensen’s conclusions can be found in a summary for publication here (in Danish).