Member Info for NickLeeson9

Paraguay has form here and has been successfully sued a few times by investors under international investment treaties. BoD should urgently seek legal advice and give a position statement if there is a good legal case to bring. Whilst no one wants an arbitration case if it's avoidable, it might help concentrate the mind of the power supplier/ state authorities as well as add to the political pressure and increase the adverse publicity in terms of Paraguay being a good place to invest.

Looks like Trump just realised he's been played

Talk about a pathetic offer and a pathetic response from the board, which should have been a firm rejection in no uncertain terms. I wouldn't be rushing to invest my money in their funds if they can't knock a low-ball offer like this out of the park....

I read that Reeves Daily Telegraph announcement as negative for motor finance companies. It sounded like she is proposing to tinker with the Regs as they relate to a small number of experienced customers, whilst perfectly happy to watch FCA line up a multi-billion pound PPI round 2 for the finance companies despite the outcome of the Supreme Court case. In other words, her words are just a sop - who in their right mind anyway relies on Reeves to help the business interest, not least given she plainly not in charge of anything.

To my way of thinking in terms of where FCA may be trying to take this, the required provision could be the aggregate of comms CBG paid under DCAs plus the total of non-DCA comms where those comms > 50% of the total interest charged, plus probably 8% pa interest all these amounts going back to 2007 (or as far back as records allow) plus the admin cost of what could be a massive trawl and the paper shuffling exercise settling out the claims (not to be underestimated). Someone with more insight into the the nature of CBG book of business might have a better idea of where the land now lies.....

I was one of those who thought the SC was going to decide in favour of the consumer and happy to be proved wrong. Full disclosure I certainly didn't short Close which is an accusation made about pretty much anyone who posts negative comments on this board but equally I certainly missed the opportunity to pick up shares pre-close and congrats to those who had the cahoonas to do that!

My reason for my pessimism was that I have actual litigation experience with these cases, I have seen a few of the high level legal opinions and lets just say the bookies money wasn't on Close; also the track record of the SC is pretty consistently against the business interest for example a key part of the current problem now facing the industry are two SC decisions which essentially mean there is pretty much no time limit on Unfair Relationship claims, other than a practical one resulting from the data having been deleted, see Smith and another v Royal Bank of Scotland plc [2023] UKSC 34 and Canada Square Operations Ltd (Appellant) v Potter (Respondent) [2023] UKSC 41- hence why FCA want to reach back to the mid 2000s.

I feel Meconopisis is absolutely bang on with his comments, assessing whether a valid 140 claim exists should not be based on a simple test of 'commission > 50% of the interest charged' and the SC did a poor job in failing to say what their decision would have been if the customer had not been misled by the dealer's "whole of market" misrepresentation, but it feels like this is exactly the road FCA is going down- basically they are going to fish out all the DCAs and all the Comms> 50% and as others have said there will then likely be some kind of Judicial Review. I suspect for now, the key issue for Close is how much business if any did they write where the commission was > 50% - hopefully they never felt as desperate as FirstRand to buy in new business!

Your faith in Judges is touching but misplaced. They have a strongly reformist tendency and have gotten very used to turning things upside down without any care for the economic consequences , their Equal Pay decisions for example are imposing massive costs on supermarkets and busted several councils already. The list of cases in which the SC acts like Kn+++s is not a short one

Totally correct but nearly all of those consequence relate to Close losing, Close winning is nowhere near as significant and the precedent is that this Friday close release is unprecedented, that is the point! Who knows - ultimately we find out on Friday but its a maybe clue, when we dont have much else to go on beside the respective strengths or each party's legal cases.

No they are not of equal market significance at all. Its the capital markets and banks which need to be protected for economic functioning. no one cares if some private ambulance chasing companies have a bad day next Friday and the fact that a load or people aren't going to get a free holiday, new phone etc does not threaten market stability. A run on some banks or certain banks deciding their capital ratios are busted on the other hand is economically massive.

I am not invested either way, just saying what I see in terms of the unusual arrangements for handing down the judgment, which smacks of anticipating serious market disruption and the need for possible political and supervisory intervention over the weekend.

Unless someone has a link to the government previously floating emergency legislation, I am sticking to my recollection, which is that this only got floated in the last few days and again smacks of a bit of panic response by Reeves.

What happened a few months ago was the Treasury trying to intervene in the proceedings to make submissions about economic impacts, not the same thing as the government saying it could introduce legislation.

If there is a legislative response, it will probably be to force or encourage consumers to go down the FCA complaints route first, may be limit compensation to the amount of commission plus interest on commission and may be put in a time limit on claims. It's not going to be a complete reversal of an adverse judgment IMO.

Interesting - there is an easy route out for the Supreme Court- they follow Expert Tooling and rule as regards the banks the test is one of Accessory Liability which requires dishonesty, and where is the dishonesty if the Defendants did what everyone else did and they thought they were complying with the rules and who anyway was the dishonest mind in Close that decided to be dishonest. I have read a few debriefs of the SC hearing and I don't get a sense that dishonesty featured prominently at the hearing even though it was flagged by legal commentators straight after the Court of Appeal gave its judgment; I think the SC would have opened this up to discussion on the floor of the Court if that is where they thought they might go in their final Judgment.

Its interesting the Treasury keeps bleating on about wanting a measured outcome - the actual judgment it seems to me could be: 1) win for banks- no dishonesty on the part of the banks, you need to try your luck with the dealers as they were the fiduciaries- happy days Close and all the other banks who were into brokered loans 2) banks held fully liable not just for the commissions but for any interest they earned above their own cost of money - so as to preclude the banks from profiting from their breach of fiduciary duty / bribery or 3) SC rules Ok you can have the commission but not the whole of bank's return.

The sudden panic of Reeves - we may have to legislate- could imply they are expecting the worst and are now pondering legislating for outcome 3) to limit recovery to comms and requiring consumers to go thru FCA complaints procedures to minimize legal costs and courts getting clogged with claims and cut off the worst of the ambulance chasing

You are confusing the Treasury request to intervene in the proceedings because they considered an adverse judgment could have major negative economic consequences - and SC flatly rejected the request because that's not their problem or concern- and in their eyes not relevant to the legal issues. I will stand corrected but I have been following this and dont recall any chatter about retro-legislation until the last few days. I would love the CMC industry to get trashed but that's poses no risk to the financial system, there are a tiny number of listed legal firms and dont think any are into these claims - they cheer leaders are all privately owned. Again SC doesn't give two hoots about CMCs but likely heads of FCA/Bank have quietly said to the SC something like we don't want a major intra-day market event relating to this case. Obviously no one knows - this is just my reading of the runes, they runes are at least consistent with the decision being for the borrowers not the banks- I personally would not be going long on Close as I dont think the downside is all in the price. Delighted to be proved wrong of course!

I also think its potentially significant that not only are they releasing the Judgment on Friday after close but unusually its not being circulated pre-handing down. Again I doubt that's because a few lawyers might be tempted to make a quick buck buying or shorting a few shares, much more likely they dont want it leaking and spooking the wider market - you cant get away from these arrangements being a very unusual move by the SC. My bet is on Monday we see Close close down! Agree though Winterflood is not directly relevant because as Close state they will be reading the Judgment same time as everyone else - although of course it could reflect the "realistic" advice given to them by their own lawyers regarding how they think the Appeal went (think about this, will they get a better a price for Winter flood as a very forced seller?).

You may be right. 1) All of a sudden UK government is talking of retro legislation when this wasn't on the agenda anytime previously even when SC rejected Treasury intervention in the case 2) Supreme Court has been very slow to grant Engie permission to appeal in Expert Tooling v Engie- on similar issues ,a bit of a "watch this space" as I think SC is going to narrow down the scope of that appeal in the light of the Car Finance judgment 3) I have been involved in the law for years, there have been many market sensitive judgments and cant recall any that had an after close handing down 4) if the decision was a win for Close that's no earthquake - just a stonking day for a few stocks and a bit of a relief rally for the financial sector but conversely the lose is potentially a major intra-day disruption with no opportunity for the market supervisors and regulators to prepare in advance- bear in mind banks are susceptible to runs 5) I have been quite deeply involved on the Energy Commission side and the balance of opinion amongst those barrister who knew what they were talking about favoured the customer side of things 6) its a sad to say the SC and CofA dont give a fig about business interests, they are drunk on their own fame and love making the news, imaging they are championing the underdog etc etc- we have seen the loads thinks of the Supermarkets are being made to pay billions on equal pay, or Lady Hale wearing her Spider Broach. I definitely would not hold my breath expecting the Supreme Court to have any regard to the economic interests of the country, they think they govern the Country!

I feel Si T is wrong as often than he is right (no stats just a hunch), the specs he sports disguise what he is, another casino player but this time using other people's money to play the tables. So many of his recommendations crash and burn, look at RBG- now practically worthless and lots of others have gone into tale spins after he gave his seal of approval- Trinity and San Leon to name but two more. I fear there are just too many sharks in the small-cap space for PIs to swim in these waters.

Facts dear boy. Look at the 10-year share graph?

Eroton announced in March they were "approaching" the Nigerian Courts, whatever that means- why haven't shareholders been updated about this litigation?

Ejembi Eko has described the Nigerian judicial system as riddled with corruption - he should know he was a Nigerian Supreme Court Judge, trouble is Western-backed companies can't go down that road due to tough extra-jurisdictional anti-bribery laws.

Do you really think this is going to be resolved in favour of Ereton any time soon?

I take no joy saying any of this, I am one of those who lost money in San Leon when they were bubbling over with excitement about their previous exploration projests which proved to be empty promises, those lessons are painfully learned.

Apologies for sounding thick but didn't San Leon's investment go down the plug-hole when NNPC sent armed guards to seize the OML field off San's partner Eroton. Has there been an update I missed about Eroton being restored to operatorship and NNPC crawling back under the rock from where they came? if not why would anyone lend money in such circumstances?

Not sure how much credibility you can give SLE's management, latest press release fails to mention the elephant in the room that is the gun point seizure of the prized OML 18 asset. Bear in mind that in response to this development shareholders got some lame re-assurance from SLE about how the takeover of OLE18 was unlawful and how the matter would be quickly resolved in the Nigerian Courts- really quickly and fairly - Just how naive can you be? Retired supreme court judge Ejembi Eko commented last year on corruption being rife in the Nigerian legal system, San Leon and its friends have to comply with Western anti-bribery laws whereas the people they are up against will play by local rules so you have to question the likely timescales and outcome. Worse in my mind was Investors Chronicle rating this share a hold when it was obvious there are mounting problems with no evidence SLE can resolve them.

Maybe it is serving Iraq's purposes that Turkey gets the blame for halting oil exports through the pipeline. Could be Iraq isn't too bothered if a manufactured dispute puts the Kurds and their licensed oil producers in a difficult spot? Belgrano is right to ask the question whether Iraq anticipated this development when they were negotiating with the Kurds.

Article publsied in legal press today (behind a pay-wall unfortunately), about Iraq is seeking to enforce its billion dollar+ judgment against Turkey in the USA. Sounds like Turkey is levereging the pipleine re-opening in order to try to agree favourable terms for resolving its arbitration liabilities. Could get very messy. One can imagine the Iraq government wont cry too many tears if Kurdistan Govt and the likes of KSP suffer in the meantime, just makes it cheaper/ easier for Iraq to hoover up the pieces later if the likes of KSP go to the wall. Hope I am proved wrong but talk of Southern routes for exporting the oil, does not bode well for an early resolution, sounds like both sides are now posturing with threats to delay turning the tap back on .