Health care professionals fight over seized Porsche 911: ‘It’s my car’

Thursday, October 13, 2022 was not a good day for Mario de Wit. On that cold morning, his dark gray Porsche 911 – purchase value in 2016 180,000 euros – was towed and impounded in Bennebroek. Foetsie was a gift the now 67-year-old health entrepreneur said he gave himself when he turned sixty.

Whether De Wit will see the car again is the question. This week he argued in court in Haarlem that he has every right to do so. “It’s my car,” he repeated immediately after the hearing. The former business partner, who is behind the shock, disputes this. This says that Porsche is owned by a BV that depends on the addiction service institution that De Wit works for.

Company car

De Wit is co-founder and director of Solutions, once the largest private addiction treatment facility in the Netherlands, now a more mainstream player with nine locations, one of which is in Belgium. Solutions were restarted last year, after the bankruptcy of one of the BVs in the ‘Christmas tree’ of which the institution is a part.

The accountant of a business partner with whom De Wit had a fight came across a Porsche car while looking at another company’s balance sheet at the Christmas tree. This used to be owned by BV, but was put in its name by De Wit in 2019, according to the accountant. The search was not easy, because ‘the administration was chaotic’. The white man denies that.

What had happened?

In 2016, De Wit became an employee of BV for a few years and was no longer able to charge his management fee of 17,500 euros as a part-time employee of Solutions. He handed over his salary, but was allowed to use the Porsche as compensation, according to the bookkeeper: “He was allowed to drive it as a company car, when the company bought the car.”

Hatch to serve

De Wit, on the other hand, argues that BV was only a ‘payment center’ and a conduit for the transaction, and that the car is and was his property. He is certified in this by the Settlement Management Board.

For De Wit it is clear and ready. “That post about the car,” he shouted after the judge unsuccessfully asked him for more documents. “I have seven hundred patients, it’s important.”

De Wit now lives in Portugal, in his own words for tax reasons. As a non-resident, he cannot insure the Porsche himself in the Netherlands, says De Wit. That is why – and not to defeat any creditors, as the other party claims – the Porsche is now registered in the name of his wife, who still lives in the Netherlands. He demands 50 euros for every day he has to miss the car, which is now with a guarantor.

Judgment is after six weeks.