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`12.Apr.2024` Passione Amiga & Amiga Documents (ANF)	Trevor Dickinson has already acquired co-ownership of AmigaOS 4 in 2019 Amiga Documents, the documentation of the recent Amiga company history, which has been continuously expanded by an anonymous author for 15 years, has been supplemented by a completely new section: The article Hyperion Entertainment's Silent Puppeteer attempts to prove that Robert Trevor Dickinson of A-EON has been financing the legal disputes with which Ben Hermans (Hyperion) has been trying to secure ever more extensive rights to AmigaOS for a decade and a half. Three new internal documents are made public for the first time: First the license agreement of March 2019 between Dickinson and Hyperion, in which the A-EON owner licenses ExecSG, which he already acquired in February 2017 according to the agreement, to Hyperion - for a price of 10 euros per copy of AmigaOS 4 sold. The price was determined as a share of the standard [AmigaOS 4] license fees of 60 euros and will be automatically corrected accordingly should Hyperion's pricing for AmigaOS 4 change. In a second contract between Hyperion and Dickinson from August 2019, the latter acquires "co-ownership" of all components of AmigaOS 4 owned by Hyperion for EUR 47,500. He is also to be granted access to all source code immediately upon receipt of payment. However, Dickinson can only use his newly acquired rights if Hyperion ceases to exist or ends its business activities with regard to AmigaOS 4 - bankruptcy or liquidation are cited as examples. (Editor's note: It is unclear to us which rights Dickinson actually acquired in August 2019. Hyperion only has a license to distribute the compiled binaries for the vast majority of AmigaOS 4 components. The only component known to us that is actually owned by Hyperion is the GUI toolkit "Reaction", which was acquired in May 2019.) A secret agreement dated December 2010 between Ben Hermans, Robert Trevor Dickinson and the former A-EON financier Anthony Moorley is now also public. It appears to confirm the allegations of embezzlement that Dickinson has been making for a long time, most recently also publicly: Ben Hermans undertakes here to repay money that he owes A-EON - including (quote) "amounts that have been removed by him from the bank accounts of A-EON Technology without authority" - and to withdraw from the company. Editor's note: In addition to publishing these new documents, the original article primarily attempts to prove Dickinson's long-standing financial support for Hyperion, especially during the two major court cases. The text was written by Nicola Morocutti and was originally published in the Italian print magazine Passione Amiga. Morocutti, who worked full-time for Mike Battilana in 2007/2008, formulates some of his statements here as if he were still employed by Hyperion's opponent and makes several unsubstantiated claims. We have therefore refrained from summarizing his statements on this topic, even though they correspond in several respects with the information we have received. We have asked the parties involved for statements and will submit them later if necessary. (cg) (Translation: cg) [News message: 12. Apr. 2024, 22:40] [Comments: 1 - 13. Apr. 2024, 14:58] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`08.Apr.2024`	Hyperion has been managed by a receiver since last week (Update) "Ben Hermans BV" (hereinafter: BHBV) is a private company with limited liability owned by Ben Hermans, which has held 97% of the shares in Hyperion since 2019 and acts as a 'director' of Hyperion on paper. In March, bankruptcy proceedings were initiated against BHBV for the second time. In the same month, Ben Hermans had already initiated the founding of a new company with the same name. As BHBV has not published any statutory annual reports since 2021, it is currently unclear whether the company still holds the majority of shares in Hyperion. Ben Hermans has not responded to an inquiry from amiga-news.de; the appointed liquidator Charlotte Piers tells us she'll get back to us in the next few days with "a more detailed response". Friday's edition of the Belgian Official Gazette (local copy) now contains the information that insolvency lawyer Bart De Moor has been appointed "voorlopig bewindvoerder" for Hyperion Entertainment. Machine translation tools turn "bewindvoerder" into "administrator" - but as native Dutch speakers tell us, a more accurate translation would be "receiver". It is currently unclear who appointed De Moor as receiver - if he had been appointed by BHBV's liquidator, this would be a clear indication that Hyperion Entertainment is part of BHBV's bankruptcy estate. We have asked Bart De Moor for confirmation and will update this news item accordingly should he respond to our questions. Update: (10.04.24, 16:45, cg) Translation error: in several places, we had translated the German term "Konkursverwalter" to "liquidator" - this is a correct translation, but does not match the English term the native Dutch speakers mentioned in the news item used: They translated "voorlopig bewindvoerder" to "receiver". News item updated accordingly. (cg) (Translation: cg) [News message: 08. Apr. 2024, 22:40] [Comments: 2 - 10. Apr. 2024, 16:54] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
`29.Mar.2024` Multiple sources	Hyperion: Bankruptcy proceedings reopened against Ben Hermans B.V. (Update) Since a restructuring in 2019, the Belgian lawyer Ben Hermans has owned around 97% of all shares in Hyperion (Heretic 2, AmigaOS 4, AmigaOS 3.2), which he transferred to his company "Ben Hermans B.V." a few months later. Since then, this very company also acts as the "Director" of Hyperion Entertainment. Bankruptcy proceedings had already been opened against Ben Hermans B.V. in May 2021: the annual financial statements for 2019 - the year in which Hermans had transferred its private Hyperion shares to Ben Hermans B.V. - had still not been published, in violation of applicable Belgian law. When asked by amiga-news.de at the time, Hermans stated that the external accountant had not been able to complete the annual report on time (quote) "due to COVID restrictions - such as the requirements to work from home and to allow only minimal staffing in offices". The problem was resolved a few months later by submitting the missing annual report. In the meantime, the company's status in the Belgian company database is once again listed as "Opening of bankruptcy procedure" (announcement in the Belgian Company Newsletter). A quick look at the published financial statements shows that the last filed report covers the 2021 financial year. We have asked Ben Hermans for a statement on the reopening of bankruptcy proceedings, but have not yet received a response. Update: (30.03.24, 23:30, cg) According to the Belgian Business Register, there is now another company called Ben Hermans B.V., founded on March 11 of this year. The provider faillissementsdossier.be, which centrally processes up-to-date information on Belgian company insolvencies and similar events, has an entry for the original Ben Hermans B.V., which claims "Ben Hermans [...] was declared insolvent by a court in Brussels on 19.03.2024". (cg) (Translation: cg) [News message: 29. Mar. 2024, 16:46] [Comments: 3 - 31. Mar. 2024, 15:22] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

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