Sonray dissidents attempt to unfreeze accounts
Dissidents exposed to the downfall of Australian financial services firm Sonray Capital intend to raise a class action against administrator Ferrier Hodgson in an effort to claw back their accounts.
With about 4000 investors concerned, the Sonray collapse leaves more than $45 million worth of creditors' funds frozen in the hands of the administrators.
The Sonray Interactive Brokers Action Group represents over 40 investors and Interactive Brokers account holders. Its manager, Adrian Tout, said they had formed the action group because administrators were snubbing their interest. ''Individuals have approached Ferrier, but they were getting nowhere. They told us that everyone is to be treated on an equal footing''.
The group claims that Sonray Global accounts were meant to be separated from Sonray Trader accounts, and Ferrier Hodgson's description of all Sonray investors as ''unsecured creditors'' indicated all funds were declared part of a single trust, therefore exposing the Sonray Global account holders to the Sonray collapse when they should not have been.
George Georges from Ferrier Hodgson, the administrator of Sonray, said he had not been approached by the group, and that he did not see why it would launch a class action.
''We're actually going to be making an application to court to get some directions from the court to give some guidance on the whole issue of segregated accounts.
''They're wasting their time mounting an action ... It just then embroils us, as administrators on behalf of everybody, in unnecessary legal actions and legal costs when we need to get a determination for everybody, not just one group of people,'' he said.