New shock for Opes clients Colin Kruger September 19, 2008 - 11:33AM
A Federal Court has determined that Opes clients are legally liable for further losses that have been run up on their accounts with the failed margin lender during one of the worst sharemarket routs of recent times.
In a court ruling on Wednesday, which has just been released, his Justice Ray Finkelstein determined that clients' trading positions with Opes were not automatically netted off when administrators were appointed in March this year.
Unless clients subsequently served the company a "notice of termination'' they will have continued to run up losses despite the company being in administration.
In some cases clients that were owed money by Opes may now be debtors thanks to the sharemarket rout which has only gathered steam in recent months.
The judgement was released late last night by Opes administrators lead by Ferrier Hodgson's John Lindholm.
In a circular to creditors, Mr Lindholm said that for the purposes of voting at the second creditors meeting, which will be held by October 15, for the purposes of proof of debt in a liquidation "investors shares should not be valued by reference to the date of appointment of administrators''.
Instead it should be by reference of the date at which the investor terminates the securities loan, or the date of liquidation.
Creditors will have the option of putting Opes into liquidation at the meeting.
SLA Price at posting:
36.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)