In early 2014, PR Week reported former staffers at Strawberry Frog Amsterdam’s office sued the agency’s parent, APCO Worldwide.
The suit claimed APCO guaranteed payments for at least three years – yet closed the office well before the three years had passed. The suit was dismissed as the defunct Strawberry Frog Amsterdam (now going by the name Dutch Advertising Consortium) filed for bankruptcy status in the Dutch courts, and it was granted. This left contractors with no way of getting paid what the firm owed them. Employees can recover all or part of their lost wages through Dutch unemployment benefits.
APCO claimed they were investors in the firm and when the PR firm’s clients either went to other agencies or developed in-house PR departments, there was no reason to keep the company active.
And now, there’s a new action, Goodson Drakenberg Holding BV and Goodson Drakenberg Holdings LLC, sued APCO Worldwide “under the parties’ contribution agreement” to pay a loan of $1,690,500. If not, to reduce the amount of equity APCO owns in StrawberryFrog LLC (who is also a named co-defendant in the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of New York on August 14th, 2015).
The action claims “APCO has not met its obligation to fund the entire principal of one of the loans”, and seeks to force APCO to either make the loan – or lose part of their ownership interest in StrawberryFrog.
At this point, there is no further information regarding the lawsuit. But, if the case goes as most such actions do, there will be several more months when the court expects the various parties to work toward a settlement of some kind. That process can sometimes take more than a year before a presiding judge allows the parties to proceed toward more formal court hearings.
Everything PR News will keep its readers posted on this court case regarding APCO Worldwide.