Netherlands Confiscates Gold

The Netherlands Central Bank has been given authority to basically confiscate the gold held by Netherlands pensioners.

As ZH says, this latest gold confiscation equivalent event is most certainly coming to a banana republic near you.

Zero Hedge reports:

Perhaps the most stunning example of what may be in store for asset managers and pension funds (and possibly retail holders) who dare to challenge central bank monetary authority comes from the Netherlands, where we have just witnessed the 21st century equivalent of Executive Order 6102. The story in a nutshell (and as translated loosely from the primary source presented below): the glassworkers pension fund (SPVG) was ordered by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, or the equivalent of the Dutch central bank), that it has to sell the bulk of its gold assets. After the SPVG refused to comply with the order, the DNB went to court and the decision has come out, siding with the central bank, ordering the SPVG to sell the required gold within two months. The pension fund, which invests for 1142 employees, in late 2009 had gold bars worth 34.6 million euros, or about 1400 kilograms. The total fund assets amounted to 288 million euros at that time. The DNB argued gold is a commodity and holding 13 percent was overweight in comparison to the 2.7% average that pension funds are invested in commodities. DNB has found that such a large proportion of gold is inconsistent with the interests of the participants. SPVG sees gold as a medium of exchange, such as euros, but DNB believes that the price of gold fluctuates too much for it to be classified as an investment. Translation of the translation: the central bank has now directly ordered a fund how to allocate its gold assets, because it explicitly disagreed with the fund’s statement that gold is money, claiming instead that it is nothing but a very volatile commodity. Very soon no pension funds in the Netherlands will be allowed to hold any amount of gold more than the merely nominal. This latest gold confiscation equivalent event is most certainly coming to a banana republic near you.

I hope you aren’t holding gold EFT’s or other worthless paper.

The only secure gold in the future is going to be the gold you have buried in your backyard.

Originally posted by mnemeth1

Translation of the translation: the central bank has now directly ordered a fund how to allocate its gold assets, because it explicitly disagreed with the fund’s statement that gold is money, claiming instead that it is nothing but a very volatile commodity.

I might have to argue that particular point unless the expected trend of gold is downward and I just don't see that in the foreseeable future. I strongly suspect that the gold is wanted by someone that is driving this. There are a few suspects that come to mind but we'll probably never find out for sure.

I think we need to know if the gold that they are/were holding is a taxable investment in that country. Maybe someone here on ATS knows the answer to that.

In view of the current state of affairs, this is more than a little disturbing...

Makes you wonder if this will set a precedent in other countries ? It is disturbing in the fact that a bank can tell a private fund what and how much they can invest in.

reply to post by mnemeth1


The finality kind of reminds me of this:

i think its time to go empty out the afe deposit box....
This is comming here sooner or later...
The banks are taking over the goverment everywhere.When will we the people begin to resist?
Makes me think of a poular commercial these days...
"Its MY money, and i need it now!"

As Reinhardt has said before, gold will be called in.

two lines

I didn't scan this particular article, but from what I understood during a previous inquiry about it was that it was too volatile.

Which, yeah, if you are leveraged gold futures for pensions / probably not a great idea. I will look deeper into it.

EDIT :

I believe I read somewhere they were leveraged into their position - hedging with futures - although I didn't read that here


- cant find the article, maybe I misread - they did have 13% in gold and the rest in AAA Rated Bonds. It probably wasn't the best strategy if you are running pensions. They did well though -