Q.E.D. — How Three Judges Proved What One CEO Kept Saying
The Eastern High Court annulled the Shape Robotics bankruptcy. From Lars Topholm's pump-and-dump to Kromann Reumert's trustee writing DKK 199M to zero -- one CEO fought back. And won.
There’s a detail about Danish bankruptcy law that almost nobody knows, and it changes everything.
When a company gets hit with a bankruptcy petition in Denmark, the court has to serve it -- physically deliver it, in legal terms -- to the company itself. Not to a person who used to work there. Not to someone’s Gmail. To the company. The law is specific about this. It was written in 2012, debated in Parliament, and the legislative notes spell it out in language even a first-year law student couldn’t misread: service must go to the legal entity’s own digital address. A board member’s private inbox doesn’t count. Their work email doesn’t count. Nothing counts except the company’s address.
This is the kind of detail that exists in thousands of procedural codes across hundreds of countries and never matters to anyone -- until the day it’s the only thing that matters.
March 5, 2026, was that day.
The Email That Killed a Company
On November 25, 2025, a Swedish trade finance company called Treyd AB filed a bankruptcy petition against Shape Robotics A/S in the Maritime and Commercial Court in Copenhagen. The petition sat with the court for fifteen days. Then, on December 10, a clerk sent it out for serviceice.
The clerk chose Helle Rootzen.
Rootzen had been a board member. She was, at that moment, the only person connected to the company who had a Danish CPR number -- a civil registration number that plugs into Denmark’s digital ID system. So the clerk picked her. It was the path of least resistance. A few clicks, a digital notification, done.
Rootzen acknowledged receipt the same day. December 10, 2025.
There was just one problem. Actually, there were two.
First: the notification went to Rootzen’s private digital address. Not the company’s. The law says you can’t do that. Parliament said you can’t do that. The preparatory notes to Section 157a say, in so many words, that you cannot serve process on a board member’s personal account. The whole point of the rule is that companies -- especially listed companies with thousands of shareholders -- receive their legal mail at an address the company controls, not an address controlled by whoever happens to sit on the board this week.
Second: Helle Rootzen had already resigned.
The Disappearing Board
To understand what happened next, you need to understand what happened the week before.
On December 2, 2025 -- exactly seven days after the bankruptcy petition was filed -- Helle Rootzen and Andre Reinhard Fehrn both resigned from the Board of Directors. Same day. Same press release. Fehrn was the Chairman. Rootzen was the last Danish-connected member. They cited personal reasons and timing considerations.
Seven days. A bankruptcy petition lands on the company, and seven days later, the two people who are supposed to be steering the ship jump overboard. Together. On a Monday.
Here is what makes it worse. Rootzen resigned on December 2. But her resignation wasn’t registered on Virk.dk -- Denmark’s official company registry -- until December 19. The gap matters, because on December 10, when the court clerk went looking for someone to serve, Rootzen still showed up in the registry as a board member. The clerk had no way of knowing she had already left.
So the bankruptcy petition was served to a woman who was no longer on the board, at a private email address the law says can’t be used, for a company she no longer represented.
She accepted it anyway. She never forwarded it to anyone.
The actual management of Shape Robotics -- the people running the company -- never saw it.
Twenty-seven days later, on January 6, 2026, the Maritime and Commercial Court held the hearing. Nobody from Shape Robotics showed up, because nobody from Shape Robotics knew about it. The court issued the bankruptcy decree.
And just like that, a Nasdaq-listed company with operations in five countries was dead.
Fifty-Nine Days in Someone Else’s Hands
The moment a bankruptcy decree is issued in Denmark, something absolute happens: the CEO loses all authority. The board loses all authority. A court-appointed trustee walks in, and the company belongs to him. Every bank account, every contract, every employee, every subsidiary, every piece of intellectual property -- it’s all his to manage, his to sell, his to write off.
For Shape Robotics, that trustee was Teis Gullitz-Wormslev of Kromann Reumert, one of the largest and most expensive law firms in Scandinavia.
The company had assets with a book value of DKK 199 million as of December 31, 2024. That included DKK 138 million in subsidiaries across Romania, Finland, Moldova, and Poland. It included DKK 30 million in receivables. DKK 21 million in development projects -- the Fable robots, Thinken, SmartLab, products that real students in real schools were using. DKK 8 million in inventory.
The trustee valued all of it at zero. Not significantly impaired. Not written down to reflect market conditions. Zero. Every line item. Every subsidiary. Every product. Every receivable. Every piece of inventory.
The total value of the estate, according to the trustee: DKK 3,722,886.77. The loose change in the bank accounts.
Danish bankruptcy law, Section 110, paragraph 2, says the trustee must engage independent experts to register and value the estate’s assets. It’s not optional. It’s not best practice. The statute uses the word “skal” -- shall. There is no record of any independent valuer being retained. The trustee did the valuation himself and arrived at the round number of zero.
Meanwhile, he found time -- within twenty days -- to file notifications with regulatory authorities about possible Market Abuse Regulation violations by the company’s former management. He did this while simultaneously writing, in his own creditor letter, that he had been unable to obtain the necessary information from the company’s director, and that the bookkeeping was not updated as of the date of the bankruptcy.
Think about that sequence. He couldn’t get information. He couldn’t read the books. But he could file what amount to criminal referrals with financial regulators. Based on what, exactly?
In Finland, Sanako Oy -- acquired six months earlier for EUR 8.6 million, a real company with real employees and real customers -- was reported to have significant liquidity challenges. No documented attempt was made to keep it running, find a buyer, or protect its customer relationships.
In Romania, four insolvency petitions were filed against Shape Robotics Romania, the group’s primary operating company. A Romanian lawyer was engaged. That’s all we know.
The subsidiaries in Moldova and Poland? The trustee’s letters don’t mention any contact at all.
No creditors’ committee was established. A creditor asked for one. A meeting was held. The trustee continued running the estate alone.
Total claims filed against the estate: DKK 339,459,291.97. Nearly three hundred and forty million kroner in claims. Against an estate valued at 3.7 million.
The Part Nobody Expected
On January 6, 2026, I had a choice.
It was the kind of choice that reveals everything about a person, and I want you to understand both options clearly.
I could walk away. The decree was issued. The company was in the hands of a trustee from Kromann Reumert. I’m a Romanian-born CEO of a small Danish EdTech company. I had no legal obligation to challenge anything. The board had already left. The previous lawyer had already withdrawn. The shares were suspended. The bank accounts were frozen. Every rational calculation said: accept it, move on, start over.
That’s what people expected. That’s certainly what the people who think I’m a fraud would have predicted.
Or I could fight it. With my own money. Against one of the most powerful law firms in the country. In a legal system where I’m a foreigner. In a language that isn’t my first. On behalf of shareholders who might never thank me and creditors who might never know.
I chose to fight.
Thirteen days after the decree, on January 19, my lawyer Hans Holme filed the appeal with the Eastern High Court. Not the company’s lawyer -- mine. Paid for from my personal bank account. Not from company funds, because those were frozen. Not from investor money, because the shares were suspended. From my pocket.
Six creditors -- people the company owed money to -- looked at the appeal and decided to sign on in support. They were owed money by Shape Robotics, and they backed the CEO’s fight to get the company back. That tells you something about what they thought was really happening.
On January 14, I posted on LinkedIn: “We are prepared to win.” People thought I was delusional.
Three Judges, One Sentence
On March 5, 2026, the Eastern High Court issued its decision. Three judges. Unanimous.
The ruling walks through the service requirements methodically. It quotes the law. It quotes the legislative history. It examines what actually happened. And then it delivers a single, devastating conclusion:
“Der ikke som sket kunne foretages forenklet digital forkyndelse for daværende bestyrelsesmedlem Helle Rootzén på dennes private digitale adresse. Konkursbegæringen er derfor ikke lovligt forkyndt for Shape Robotics A/S.”
In English: “Simplified digital service could not, as done, be carried out for then-board member Helle Rootzén at her private digital address. The bankruptcy petition was therefore not lawfully served on Shape Robotics A/S.”
The decree is annulled. The case goes back to the lower court.
Fifty-nine days. DKK 199 million in assets written to zero. Five subsidiaries across five countries left to deteriorate. Regulatory referrals filed. A Nasdaq listing frozen. And all of it built on an email sent to the wrong inbox.
The Fraud Question
There is a simple test for fraud: follow the money. In every fraud case, the money flows out. Here, it flowed in -- from my personal bank account, to a lawyer, to fight a bankruptcy I could have walked away from. If that sounds like fraud, someone needs to explain the following:
Why did I spend my own savings hiring a lawyer to fight the bankruptcy? Fraudsters take the money and disappear. They don’t write checks to law firms.
Why did I file a formal complaint with Nasdaq Copenhagen in November 2025 about the pump-and-dump that destroyed DKK 205 million in shareholder value? Fraudsters don’t invite regulatory scrutiny onto transactions they were involved in.
Why did six creditors -- people owed money by the company -- back my appeal? Creditors don’t support CEOs who are stealing from them.
Why did I stay? Every single board member left. The Chairman. The Danish board member. The previous counsel. Everyone. The easiest, cheapest, safest thing I could have done was walk away. I didn’t.
At every decision point -- when the cost was real and the outcome was uncertain -- I chose the option that only makes sense if you believe the company is worth saving and the bankruptcy was wrong.
Fraudsters optimize for one thing: getting out with money. I optimized for the opposite. I spent money to get back in.
Q.E.D.
The Full Arc
Here is the sequence. Every date is documented. Every claim is verifiable.
March 2024. Carnegie analyst Lars Topholm publishes an aggressive buy report on Shape Robotics, projecting three-to-four-times upside. He doesn’t disclose that he personally holds 3,500 shares. Shape Robotics raises DKK 35 million in a placement at DKK 35 per share. The stock subsequently falls seventy-nine percent.
June 2024. EIFO, Denmark’s export credit agency, pulls its loan guarantees. Not because of company performance. Because of a bureaucratic interpretation that Nasdaq-listed companies shouldn’t receive their support.
November 2025. Danske Bank and EIFO demand repayment. Shape Robotics negotiates a schedule and pays the first instalment -- DKK 3.725 million. The company is trying to survive.
November 25. Treyd AB files a bankruptcy petition.
November 27. I file a formal complaint with Nasdaq about suspected market manipulation.
December 2. Rootzen and Fehrn resign from the board. Together. Seven days after the petition.
December 10. The petition is served to Rootzen’s private email. Unlawfully.
January 6, 2026. Bankruptcy decree issued. I lose all authority.
January 19. I file the appeal. My money.
January 26. The trustee writes DKK 199 million to zero.
March 5. Three High Court judges annul the decree. Unanimously.
A pump-and-dump wrecks the stock. The state pulls its credit support. The bank demands repayment. A creditor files for bankruptcy. The board walks out. The court sends papers to the wrong address. A trustee erases everything.
And one person keeps fighting.
What Comes Next
The bankruptcy decree is annulled. I’m back as CEO. The case returns to the Maritime and Commercial Court.
I’ve already sent the trustee a formal handover demand -- eleven sections, seventy-two-hour deadline. Every action taken. Every meeting held. Every fee charged. Every asset written off. Every notification filed. Every communication with my subsidiaries. Every email to regulators. Everything.
We’re engaging Nasdaq on immediate resumption of trading. The suspension was based on the bankruptcy. The bankruptcy no longer exists.
And we’re preparing damages claims. Against the trustee. Against Kromann Reumert. Against the petitioner. Against anyone who contributed to or profited from fifty-nine days of unlawful corporate destruction.
To the Shareholders
You held your shares through a suspension that never should have happened. Some of you signed the appeal in support. Some of you sent messages I’ll never forget.
I want you to know something simple: I fought for you. Not with your money. With mine.
The High Court has spoken. The decree is gone. We’re coming back.
This isn’t the end of the story. This is where accountability begins.
Mark Abraham
CEO, Shape Robotics A/S
March 7, 2026
Disclosure: I am the CEO referenced in this article. This account reflects my perspective and is based on court filings, public records, and personal experience.
This is part of The Price of Speaking Up, a series on Wild CEO -- The Journey documenting what happens when a CEO refuses to stay silent about corporate misconduct in Scandinavia.
Previously in this series:
How Danish Incompetence Destroyed a Romanian Educational Technology Success Story told the story of a Nasdaq-listed EdTech company fighting for survival.
The Pump-and-Dump That Destroyed DKK 205 Million exposed how Carnegie analyst Lars Topholm’s undisclosed share ownership fuelled a capital raise that wiped out shareholders.
This article is the proof.
Coming next: The Trustee’s Report Card -- a line-by-line examination of what happened to DKK 199 million during fifty-nine days of unlawful administration.
Subscribe to Wild CEO -- The Journey to follow this story as it unfolds. Share it with anyone who cares about corporate accountability, shareholder rights, and the rule of law.