Scavenger claims another scalp at court door, for $967 By David Elias February 11, 2005
Page Tools Email to a friend Printer format Sharemarket scavenger David Tweed has forced yet another of his elderly victims into submission, adding $967.40 to the $10 million he has said he made in one year from his low-ball purchase offers.
Sydney widow Joan Stobo threw in the towel at the door of the Victorian Supreme Court yesterday when lawyers advised that her appeal against Mr Tweed's National Exchange had no legal legs. Her brother Colin Clift, a retired Queensland grazier, has paid $40,000 in legal fees to help his sister take a stand against Mr Tweed, who operates behind the closed shutters and security cameras of a warehouse in the shadows of the Melbourne stock exchange building.
In his unsuccessful attempt last year to sue Commonwealth Bank for up to $80 million after being thwarted by a tricked-up share register, Mr Tweed told the Federal Court he had made $10 million in 2003 on the resale of shares in four demutualised public companies including Insurance Australia Group.
Mrs Stobo's story is little different to those of the hundreds of elderly or infirm battlers dragged into the Melbourne Magistrates Court for breach of contract after backing away once they learnt how far below value his purchase offers were. She had 691 shares in IAG that she acquired when her insurer NRMA demutualised. They were worth $2.60 to $2.70, but she had not been following the stockmarket prices when National Exchange offered her $1.50 in February 2003.
Advertisement AdvertisementThough she had run her family's $1 million-plus portfolio since her husband died 17 years earlier, she said she was not market savvy and would never sell shares her children had a beneficial interest in without talking to her sharebroker and accountant. But her IAG shares were her own and she had little interest in them. Back from a family visit on the Gold Coast, she opened National Exchange's letter, saw time was running out and signed the acceptance form without checking the shares' market price.
Mrs Stobo said she had been misled into believing the offer was genuine by Mr Tweed's English-sounding name and the letter's English headings and Old English printing. Later she learnt how cheaply she had let the stock go and refused to send her security holder reference number to complete the deal. She said she had been naive but on principle she and her brother were determined to take a stand, as much for other, less-fortunate victims of Mr Tweed as for themselves.
Magistrate Peter Mealy found Mrs Stobo an honest witness and criticised Mr Tweed's follow-up correspondence, saying it appeared designed to intimidate a defendant. But he found Mrs Stobo had breached her contract, ordering her to pay $967 plus interest and costs, a $2598 total.
Mrs Stobo sought to appeal, claiming Mr Mealy had erred in law, but outside the Supreme Court yesterday she conceded defeat. Her counsel, Gary Moore, instructed by Sherrill O'Connor-Sraj, sought an order by consent to dismiss the appeal with no order for costs. After agreeing to sign a confidentiality clause, a disappointed Mrs Stobo and her brother left Melbourne, refusing to comment.
