Victims of fraudster David Ross, who are looking at a return of less than 3 cents in the dollar, are calling for a finance industry fidelity fund to help unwind frauds and failures.
The investors say fraudsters like Ross are no longer the problem, with the country’s “unfair and ineffective” regulatory environment ensuring investors are “robbed a second time”
Investors in the failed Ross Asset Management have written to the Minister of Commerce, claiming weak regulations are stopping them from recovering more of their lost investments. Listen to Radio NZ Checkpoint here
There are claims new financial markets reforms will do nothing to help investors avoid another David Ross-style ripoff.
Spokesman Bruce Tichbon said: “Financial structures and safeguards in NZ are not sufficiently robust to support a modern economy, and RAM and the many other fraud cases are surely proof of this. Investor confidence is intolerably low and the size of NZ’s financial markets is seriously small compared to the markets of our trading partners.”
Tichbon said the FMCA was “top-of-the-cliff” legislation that was likely to be ineffectual.
David Ross’ out-of-pocket victims want an industry-backed fidelity fund to help “screwed” investors recover money from similar fraud and company failures.
The Ross Asset Management Investors Group – formed in the wake of that company’s collapse – has written to the Commerce Minister Craig Foss criticising the “unfair and ineffective” regulatory environment in New Zealand.