Dismissed staffers benefited from Opes PrimeFont Size: Decrease...

Dismissed staffers benefited from Opes PrimeFont Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Richard Gluyas | August 23, 2008
Article from: The Australian
TWO ANZ securities lending staffers who were dismissed by the bank yesterday received margin calls from Opes Prime and owed the broker $293,000 and $13,000 at the time of its collapse in late March.

The bank's review of its securities lending business, released yesterday, said the employees had received a benefit from a customer and were in a position to treat the customer favourably.

"These employees did not bring to ANZ's attention the fact that Opes was not making or enforcing margin calls on clients whose accounts were in margin, and allowing clients whose accounts were in margin to continue trading," the report said. "As a result of the investigation, these two employees will end their employment with ANZ."

While the review found no evidence of fraud or unlawful conduct, there were five ANZ staff with access to Opes trading accounts, including one employee's spouse.

The bank's code of conduct at the time did not require disclosure of the Opes accounts, but the report said it would have been prudent for each employee to make a disclosure and only one had done so. Of the five accounts, two were not properly maintained.

The employee with the $293,000 Opes debt had been allowed to trade and increase the account, even though it had been subject to a margin call since October 2005.

Opes had not followed up the margin call and no attempt was made by the staffer, who conducted daily securities lending trades with the broker, to pay the amount called.

A similar story had unfolded with the other, $13,000 unpaid account, which had been subject to a margin call since October last year. No further calls were made, and the employee made no attempt to bring the account into order.

ANZ chief Mike Smith said yesterday two other employees had given instructions to trade on their Opes accounts on March 27, the day before Opes was put into receivership.



Comment

It appears 5 ANZ staff were using Opes "Margin Lending" Services

Further ..we know Mr Nick Harding was one of those plus his spouse

Nick by way of background was a senior executive and business development manager of ANZ Nominees/ Custodians

We ,as Opes clients , have often wondered ...about ANZ's assertion .."That they didnt know" about Opes and it's representations...and ANZ argued that they were innocent bystanders

We assert that ANZ was on notice wrt to Opes in that 5 of the ANZ Noms staff were using the "margin facilities"