DSE seeks a month to settle defrauded investors' claims
The Dhaka bourse has sought time till this 23 July to settle claims by the defrauded customers of four brokerage firms – Tamha Securities, Banco Securities, Crest Securities, and Shah Mohammad Sagir & Co – who embezzled clients' assets.
The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) was supposed to settle the claims by the middle of May this year, and submit a report to the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC). But it failed to do so and now asked for more time from the commission.
On 11 June, the BSEC wrote to the bourse terming the deadline miss "very sad and unwanted" and sought a progress report by 15 June.
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In a letter to the BSEC, the Dhaka bourse said it has completed an assessment of real assets and claims based on audit reports of the four brokerage firms.
"The assessment will be placed in the next meeting of the trustee board of the investors' protection fund, which will be held soon. After transferring the fund as per the board's decision and directives by the BSEC, the stock exchange will inform about this by 13 July," the letter reads.
According to sources, this will be the first time the fund will be used since its formation nearly a decade ago.
Earlier, the BSEC decided that the total claim, which is nearly Tk200 crore in those four firms, will be settled from the DSE Investors' Protection Fund.
But the fund size till this January stood at Tk19 crore only, indicating that the investors will get about one-tenth of their money back from the fund. So far, the DSE has settled nearly Tk20 crore of claims.
The DSE Investors' Protection Fund came into being through a gazette notification in August 2014. The fund was created to protect the interests of investors in the case of default by brokerage firms.
After five years, if not claimed, any benefits from untraceable brokerage firms will be submitted to the Investor Protection Fund.
