The bankruptcy estates of Nordic Waste and DSH Recycling went to court on Monday, seeking 17 million kroner from three companies tied to businessman Torben Østergaard-Nielsen.
The main hearing opened on September 7 at the Court in Randers. DR reports that the estates want the money returned from the former owners in DSH Environment ApS and two other firms in the USTC group.
The soil treatment company Nordic Waste went bankrupt in January 2024. The collapse came shortly after millions of cubic meters of soil were set in motion at Ølst near Randers.
The Court in Randers will hold 11 hearings in the case. It must decide whether the payments were made when the companies were so close to bankruptcy that the money should instead be returned to the estates.
According to Ritzau, as published by SN.dk, the three defendants are DSH Environment ApS, Selfinvest ApS and SelfGenerations T ApS. All three form part of Østergaard-Nielsen’s USTC-controlled business group.
Attorney Jacob Skude Rasmussen of Gorrissen Federspiel represents the three companies. He says the money was paid as a-conto tax and then passed on within the group, and that his clients should be acquitted.
The bankruptcy estates, which brought the case, declined to be interviewed by DR. The estates argue the funds should be reversed and brought back in for creditors, per DR’s reporting.
Other claimants are watching
Frederik Waage, professor of administrative law at the University of Southern Denmark, told DR that the outcome matters to several parties. Randers Municipality, the government and creditors with money at stake are all closely interested in whether more funds reach the estate.
The cleanup after the landslide, which began in December 2023, amounts to roughly half a billion kroner. There has been intense debate since then over who must cover that bill. Randers Municipality and the state have both filed claims to recover their cleanup costs.
The government is separately pursuing a damages case against the former management of Nordic Waste, according to DR. Waage expects both the municipality and the state to follow the current case in Randers.
The question of who ultimately pays for the cleanup will be settled in a separate trial at a later date. The claims against the bankruptcy estates remain unresolved until then.
Nordic Waste and DSH Recycling both operated at the site in Ølst before the bankruptcy. The 17 million kroner claim concerns payments made out of those two companies to their owners.
