Kasi-Jesper eyes new billion-dollar fight with Pandora – wants silent top executives to testify.

He has been fighting for more than ten years, but refuses to give up.

In 2021, Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen lost a spectacular fight in arbitration court over a billion-dollar sum to his former employer Pandora. But now the controversial businessman wants to reopen the case, as new and very key witnesses are allegedly ready to tell what really happened.

"I had given up when the verdict was handed down in the arbitration court in 2021 because we had used all legal tools."

But now some former top executives have shown me internal documents that reveal a major

"Scam," says Jesper Nielsen.

On Sunday, the Danish Weekly Newspaper writes about the new documents, which apparently show how two parallel accounts were prepared in the jewelry company Pandora.

Berlingske has had the opportunity to review the same documents, which Jesper Nielsen hopes will reopen the lengthy case.

And the main character believes that Pandora owes him 2.3 billion kroner.

Pandora denies the allegations, and the jewelry company does not believe that new information has emerged.

"These are strong accusations that we strongly reject. Jesper Nielsen apparently continues to

"make mirage claims and allegations of dishonest behavior on Pandora's part," it is stated in a written response from Pandora's lawyer, Jeppe Jensen.

Large arm movements

Kasi-Jesper became known to the public for having built Pandora's successful businesses in Germany, among other places. He became a sponsor of the Brøndby football club, organized major handball matches and spoke out on most matters in public.

It was financed to some extent by money that Kasi-Jesper had not yet received from his partial ownership of the large Pandora subsidiary CWE, which was responsible for operations in central Europe.

Originally, Kasi-Jesper had received 400 million kroner when Pandora went public in 2010. But he was set to receive an additional significant bonus – a so-called earn-out.

Jesper Nielsen spent a lot of money quickly. Here he is presented at a press conference in 2008 as the new major sponsor of Brøndby.

Photo: Liselotte Sabroe.

It was to be calculated based on how much the CWE company earned in a period up to 2014. According to the Kasi family's own calculations, the earn-out agreement should be 824 million kroner in addition to the 400 million kroner that had already been paid out.

But it didn't go quite as planned.

Earnings suddenly plunged significantly in the CWE company, and in 2015 Pandora was able to surprisingly inform Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen that the agreement was worthless because the CWE company had not earned enough.

An arbitration case from 2021 also determined that no more money would be paid to Kasi-Jesper.

New unknown witness

So it looked like a closed case. But the final sentence may not have been written.

Last year, the business media Finans wrote that Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen had found evidence that Pandora deliberately manipulated earnings in the CWE company when he was about to be finally bought out of the jewelry group.

Back then, he also threatened a billion-dollar claim. But now new, centrally placed witnesses – whose identities Berlingske knows – are reportedly on their way to tell about the alleged manipulation.

According to the information, there are two accounts: Pandora's external accounts, which show that earnings in CWE plummeted. And an internal one, which paints a different and far more positive picture.

The former was used to calculate the earn-out agreement with Jesper Nielsen. The latter was allegedly used to calculate the bonuses that Pandora paid to employees.

According to Jesper Nielsen, the material can document that the bonuses for 2014 were based on a

operating income in the CWE company, which was far higher than the figures presented to the Kasi family.

The new information has prompted Jesper Nielsen to prepare a new arbitration case, where, according to Økonomisk Ugebrev, the witnesses will tell how it was possible to make it appear as if earnings had fallen in the CWE company.

A decline that meant that Pandora avoided the so-called earn-out payment to the Kasi family.

Experienced lawyer brought in.

To conduct a possible new case, Jesper Nielsen has hired experienced lawyer and expert in arbitration cases Dan Stampe-Terkildsen.

He does not yet wish to comment on the case, but instead refers to the complaint, which will form the basis for the possible new case.

The complaint states, among other things, that there should be documentation showing a much larger profit in Pandora CWE in the period 2012 to 2016 than those presented to the Kasi family.

"The reported figures in this report stand in stark contrast to the figures presented to Kasi ApS," the lawyer writes.

The jewelry company Pandora has had great success, especially with its bracelets. The company is today one of Denmark's largest.

Archive photo: Morten Germund/Ritzau Scanpix

The complaint refers to an internal Pandora document, which, under the heading "Pandora CWE - FY 2014 Financial Key Figures", states that the operating earnings - called Ebitda - in 2014 were 76.2 million euros in the subsidiary.

This corresponds to almost 570 million kroner – an amount that would have allegedly triggered a large payout to Kasi-Jesper.

According to the complaint, it was an extensive and well-planned approach that was used to squeeze earnings down in Pandora's German subsidiary.

Return goods to Hamburg

According to Kasi-Jesper's lawyer, this happened because CWE bought returned goods from other Pandora companies around the world. They were then written down to zero - a method that caused CWE a loss of several hundred million kroner, while other parts of Pandora escaped that cost.

This was supposed to have happened because, as part of the plan, large quantities of jewelry were shipped from other parts of the world to Hamburg, so that they were physically located on CWE's premises.

The complaint states that the purpose was to remove "the rightful payment to Kasi ApS."

"The difference in Ebitda (operating earnings, ed.) has also been kept hidden from Kasi ApS, the Danish Arbitration Institute and the independent auditor to this day," writes Dan Stampe-Terkildsen.

The complaint further states that the method was "planned over a long period of time and the implementation has been demanding both in terms of time and planning."

The new information comes to light because former high-ranking employees are said to have told about their time at the jewelry company. Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen wants to bring them as witnesses if a new arbitration case is opened.

According to Berlingske, reopening the case will require thorough documentation of the allegations contained in the complaint. At the same time, a new arbitration case is unlikely to take place unless the new sources sign a declaration in advance about the alleged manipulation and that they will speak about it in court.

The case is also complicated by the fact that the company Kasi ApS – which is behind the claim – has gone bankrupt and, according to the CVR, was dissolved in February last year.

Initially, the bankruptcy estate will be reopened. The plan is for this to happen shortly after the German handball club Rhein-Neckar Löwen requested it earlier this summer.

Maritime and Commercial Court about it.

The bankruptcy estate must be reopened

Jesper Nielsen has been involved in the club, which has a claim of 26 million kroner in the bankruptcy estate. If the bankruptcy estate is opened, Jesper Nielsen's lawyer will send the complaint to the arbitration court, which will then decide whether the new information is sufficient to reopen the case.

"I'm absolutely sure that we'll get the money. If I were to say it a bit like someone from Vestegnen, we're going to pull their pants down now. What they've done is absolutely crazy," says Jesper Nielsen.

According to Pandora, the accusations in the upcoming complaint to the arbitration court were invented by Jesper Nielsen.

"His home-made complaint contains nothing new, and his so-called new revelations are known knowledge, all of which were dealt with by the arbitration court, which has decided the case. We consider it closed in every way," says Jeppe Jensen, attorney for Pandora.

Berlingske has asked a number of questions about the case, which Pandora has not wanted to answer.

Among other things, the jewelry group has not addressed the complaint's claim that the company wrote down returned goods to zero and caused the subsidiary large losses, just as Pandora will not address whether two different accounts were kept for the company.

In 2012, Jesper Nielsen was behind the handball club AG Copenhagen.

Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix.

Frank Thinggaard, professor of external accounting at Aarhus University, says that much is still unclear and that it is currently difficult to say anything precise about the matter.

However, he points out that there is a clear, standardized set of rules that official external financial statements must comply with. However, a company can also operate with alternative internal figures.

"In internal accounting, on the other hand, the company can make all the adjustments it wants to suit its own purpose, for example, disregarding certain cost items when calculating bonuses for senior employees. In other words, there does not have to be a one-to-one correlation between internal and external accounting," says Frank Thinggaard.

Best investment from a private equity fund

The big winner from the investment in Pandora was the private equity fund Axcel. In 2008, the fund bought 60 percent of the company and listed it on the stock exchange just two years later with a large profit.

Axcel's investment in Pandora has since proven to be one of the best investments a European private equity fund has ever made. The money from the acquisition was repaid 40 times over and meant that Axcel generated a profit of almost 20 billion kroner. Several partners have subsequently received triple-digit million amounts for the investment.

The best thing happened to the responsible partner, Nikolaj Vejlsgaard, who personally earned around 300 million kroner on Pandora, and Axcel's then CEO, Christian Frigast, who earned close to half a billion kroner on the investment.

That's not how it went for Jesper Nielsen. He has been through a number of difficult years after previously spending a lot of money, especially on investments in sports clubs.

In 2020, Jesper Nielsen went bankrupt personally because he had received several million-dollar fines for mentioning the Pandora case, which was otherwise covered by a confidentiality clause.

Later, both Jesper Nielsen, his sister Annette and his mother Dorthe Nielsen – who together had formed the management of Kasi ApS – were sentenced to bankruptcy quarantine for “grossly irresponsible business conduct” by the Maritime and Commercial Court.

This meant that they were not allowed to participate in the management of a business for a period of two years.

The quarantine is due, among other things, to the fact that around 14 million kroner disappeared from Kasi ApS, just before the company went bankrupt in 2019 with a huge debt.

Neither Christian Frigast, founder and chairman of Axcel, nor Boris Frederiksen, partner at the Danish Bar Association and trustee in Kasi ApS, wish to comment on the matter.