Langbar International

Quite a few of the shareholders I have spoken to, have informed me that they have not received delivery of the share certificates they were expecting.

Following conversations with a Langbar shareholder that works in the City, it is highly probably that the Market Makers were aware of Langbar's problems prior to the share being suspended.

We already know that the market discounted the price of the shares, because there was considerable doubt that the funds in Brazil could be transferred to Europe.

However, during the last few months before suspension, it is possible that the MMs were aware from the trades, that someone was selling large quantities of shares into the market. It is quite possible that they guessed the identity of the person from the size of the transactions and therefore knew that something was wrong.

Whilst action is being taken to recover the assets of the company and restore the value to the share, it is possible that those people who did not receive their shares, because they were shorted might be able to do something to have their contracts cancelled or maybe even receive some compensation.

I am asking each shareholder to verify that their share purchase was completed. This can be done by checking with your broker. They should be able to confirm that the transaction was completed. If you doubt what they are telling you, you may be able to check with the LSE if your transaction is on the CREST list of uncompleted settlements. CREST produces a list of these transactions each month and it is used to monitor the success of the clearance procedure.

If you were expecting a share certificate and it did not arrive, or if your broker confirms that the settlement has not been completed, or the LSE identifies your trade amongst those on the CREST list, then you will need contact the Action Group, so that we can record your unsettled contract and take matters further for you.

We would recommend that you obtain your shares in certificated form. The brokers normally charge a small fee to process this transaction. However, at this moment, because of the frozen CREST ISIN numbers, it is probable that they will tell you that they can not have the certificate created.

The Langbar registrar is Capita and they have been contacted. We are starting the preliminary work to prove which MMs were shorting the share and which transactions have not completed. It is unlikely that the MMs would be charged with market distortion. However, they may have incurred a liability for not making provision to settle their contracts by settlement date.

As you know, the Room Service Scandal established that regardless of a suspension, Market Makers have an obligation to settle on the contractual settlement date. Under the LSE rules 3700 and 3701, they must ENSURE that settlement is on time. If they fail to do so, they will also break LSE rule 3300.6 for causing the broker to break both these settlement rules as well.

If they did not make provision to obtain the shares from other sources or take any and all reasonable steps to ENSURE delivery, the court may award against them or even entertain a plea for rectification of the contract on non-perfomance.

If you feel that you are a victim of being shorted, can you contact me and I will tell you what you need to do.

Anomalous@Anomalous.biz