Legal
RBC Joins Others In Suing Clients Following Singapore Market Plunge - Report
Royal Bank of Canada sued three private wealth clients in Singapore, joining companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. seeking money owed by customers after an October stock plunge.
Royal
Bank of Canada sued three private wealth clients in
Singapore, joining companies including Goldman Sachs Group
seeking money owed by customers after an October stock plunge,
according to Bloomberg.
The Toronto-listed bank declined to comment to
WealthBriefing when contacted about the matter.
The report said that Blumont Group’s executive chairman Neo Kim
Hock and executive director James Hong and businessman Nelson
Fernandez owe RBC a total of $63.3 million, according to lawsuits
filed in the Singapore High Court. The men refused to pay after
shares in companies such as Blumont, Asiasons Capital and
LionGold Corp, held as security, tumbled in the October crash,
the bank said in court papers.
This brings the total banks and brokers are seeking to recover
from the crash to at least $210 million.
Last week, Singapore’s central bank and other authorities have
expanded a probe into suspected stock-trading irregularities
around the plunge of the three commodity companies that erased
$6.9 billion in market value. Investigators are seeking
electronic data from Neo, Hong and executives from six other
companies.
Royal Bank is seeking $22.8 million from Neo, $17.8 million from
Hong and $22.7 million from Fernandez. All three men applied to
open accounts with the bank in April 2013 and had as much as $30
million each in credit facilities, the report said.
The bank’s lawsuit against Hong “has no prospect of success” and
should be dismissed as it’s frivolous, Hong was quoted. as
saying. Neo and Fernandez haven’t filed their defences, the
report said, adding they did not respond to enquiries.