FeltexClaim progressing slowly towards Stage 2 Compensation

(Headline abbreviated, original headline: FeltexClaim progressing slowly towards Stage 2 Compensation hearing amidst claimant concerns about deathly to elderly Covid-19 virus reaching Wellington this winter)

Antony Hamel has just emailed a letter and updating Court documents to Feltex Claimants (copies attached: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,) as required by Justice Dobson.

Mr Hamel’s concerns about the Covid-19 virus and its threat to the 30 or so elderly Feltex Claimants required to give evidence on behalf of 3,600 other claimants are recorded in Justice Dobson’s minute dated 2 March 2020. He says his clients are cancelling all travel plans for May.

In spite of this, and the time it is taking the claimant group to resolve Stage 2 evidence and funding issues, the defendants want to push urgently ahead in mid-winter 2020. Failing that, they want all compensation claims dismissed.

More likely, according to JAFL Director, Tony Gavigan, the defendants and their AIG insurers want to avoid paying any remedy at all after the Supreme Court’s 13 December 2019 reiteration of its liability finding and of the facts underlying it in decision [2019] NZSC 148. Over 850 claimants have already emailed YES to the question would they have changed their investment decision had they known the true facts.

The facts (according to the Supreme Court [263] to [264]) included that Feltex’s 2004 pre IPO sales were bad in Jan, Feb, Apr and May 2004 and missing IPO expectations by 10% at 2 June 2004.

Evidence at stage 1 of the Feltex Claim included that KPMG had reported in 2002 that this was a recurring annual feature of the loss making Feltex Carpets business. A struggling and vulnerable business which Issuer Peter Thomas had admitted in his famous Lemon email was “bankrupt 18months before the float”. It failed completely in 2006 causing total loss to most shareholders and creditors.

Some 1,600 elderly Feltex Claimants who do not have email, and will not yet have received Mr Hamel’s email, should read the attached documents and supply a family email address to FeltexClaim@gmail.com for further updates on funding progress, to be announced soon.

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