Local investors who suffered losses from their Lehman Brothers-linked structure note investments yesterday vowed to join forces with Hong Kong investors to take to the streets tomorrow, requesting that the government help them seek a full reimbursement from associated banks.
They also called on the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) chairman to step down for his inaction.
“The protests will be staged simultaneously in Taiwan and Hong Kong by structured product investors, urging both authorities to follow the same model used to reimburse participatory notes investors and to provide 100 percent reimbursements,” Lemmon Wang (王立明), spokesman of the Structured Notes Self-Salvation Organization (連動債聯合自救會), told a press conference in Taipei yesterday.
The organization also requested that the FSC’s Banking Bureau remove the nine conditions it has set for high-priority negotiations concerning structured notes after investors complained they had yet to be reimbursed despite meeting the conditions.
“We request the banking bureau establish new reimbursement policies. We will go to great lengths to get reimbursed,” Wang said.
The organization urged legislators to establish a law to freeze the assets of Lehman Brothers’ Taiwan branch. The US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc filed for bankruptcy protection in September.
The organization criticized FSC chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) for his incompetence in dealing with the case and for siding with local banks.
While investors of similar products in Hong Kong can get between 30 percent and 50 percent of their money back and those in Singapore can get at least half or all of their money back, local investors can only recuperate about 15 percent of their money, said Kevin Yeh (葉添財), head of the organization.
“We want to get to the truth, because we were deceived into buying structured products,” Yeh said.
Tomorrow’s protest will start at the Taipei Railway Station at noon and end at the Legislature at 5pm. After that, the organization intends to go to Chen’s home in the city’s Xinyi District (信義).
As many as 1,500 people are expected to participate in the demonstration, Wang said.
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