---
category: "Belgium Scandals"
tags:
  - Person
  - Belgium
  - Dutroux
  - Elite
  - Fortis
summary: "Fortis chairman who in July 2008 privately told its chief executive he had never been so afraid for the bank, then publicly urged investors to buy; named by the X-Dossier witness X1."
born: 1943-05-09
location: "Knokke, Belgium"
relations:
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Fortis]]"
    role: "chairman"
    end: 2008
    fn: 1
  - type: relative_of
    with: "[[Count Leopold Lippens]]"
    role: "brother"
    fn: 2
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-09-22
---

Maurice Lippens is the brother of [[Count Leopold Lippens]], mayor of [[Knokke-Heist]] from 1979 to 2021, and was chairman of the bank [[Fortis]].[^1][^2]

### Fortis

Fortis had just completed the takeover of the Dutch ABN Amro group when, on July 26, 2008, in an email to the chief executive, Jean-Paul Votron, later obtained by the financial daily *De Tijd,* Lippens wrote that he had "major questions about the future" and: "You should know that I've never been so afraid for the future of Fortis." The next day he told VRT's program *Terzake* that difficult circumstances were coming in the markets and the economy, called the ABN Amro takeover the acquisition of "a beautiful gem," and said: "I would say, ladies and gentlemen, invest as fast as you can." Within months the value of Fortis shares collapsed, and groups of private investors went to court.[^3] In September 2009 Lippens admitted to "a whole series of errors, notably in communication," none of them, he said, a fault, and criticized the Belgian government for having said "too bad for the shareholder" and the Dutch authorities for having "betrayed their word"; the former prime minister [[Yves Leterme]] replied that "everyone knows clearly who led the company into its problems."[^1]

### X-Dossier Allegations

In the [[X-Dossier]] investigation under Judge [[Jean-Marc Connerotte]], the witness X1, [[Regina Louf]], named Maurice and Leopold Lippens, with [[Paul Vanden Boeynants]] and [[Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin]], among her most violent abusers. The witness X2 described parties with underage girls in villas in Knokke and at the Hotel Cromwell attended by [[Etienne Davignon]], Leopold Lippens and others. Maurice Lippens was never charged.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: "Maurice Lippens rompt le silence." *VRT NWS,* September 19, 2009, archived October 16, 2019; translated from the French. https://web.archive.org/web/20191016073837/https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/fr/2009/09/19/maurice_lippens_romptlesilence-1-600628/
[^2]: Bulté, Annemie, Douglas De Coninck, and Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck. *De X-dossiers.* Epo, 1999, and the leaked summary of the X-file investigation published by WikiLeaks in 2009; neither examined directly. The witness attributions were located through the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics compilation "Belgian X-Dossiers of the Dutroux Affair: the Accused," used as a finding aid only.
[^3]: "Did Maurice Lippens deceive small investors?" *VRT NWS,* September 21, 2013, archived September 20, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190920101737/https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2013/09/21/did_maurice_lippensdeceivesmallinvestors-1-1734811/