Around 16,000 small shareholders felt they had been deceived at the time of the German telecom company’s third IPO in 2000 and have been filing lawsuits with the Frankfurt higher regional court since 2001.

According to their claims, total share price losses amounted to around 80 million euros.

If investors accept the deal, they will get back the purchase price paid in 2000. Dividends paid in the meantime and the current approximate share price to be deducted, while 70 percent of the interest relating to the judicial proceedings will be added.

The shares will then remain in their possession.

This was agreed before the Frankfurt court by leading investor protection lawyers and the three defendants in the case: Deutsche Telekom, the Federal Republic of Germany and the state bank KfW.

Individual plaintiffs are each to be presented with an offer by the end of June 2022.

The shares were offered on the market in June 2000 at an initial price of 66.50 euros.

Several months ago, shares in the company hit an all-time high of 103.50 euros. Today, they are trading at around 17 euros, not too far from the original issue price in 1996.

The class-action proceedings have not yet concluded. However, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice found a serious error in the sales prospectus for the IPO.

The presiding judge at Frankfurt’s higher regional court, Bernhard Seyderhelm, has called on the plaintiffs to accept the settlement.