Federal Court rules in favour of Armidale Dumaresq Council
Armidale Dumaresq Council has welcomed the decision handed down on Friday by the Full Court of the Federal Court regarding separate questions relating to claims made against Lehman Bros Australia.
The Council's General Manager Shane Burns said the decision handed down by the Federal Court was in favour of Councils across Australia. .
"In broad terms, the decision has ruled that the Deed of Company arrangement held by Lehman Bros was void and of no effect," Mr Burns said. "What this means to the Council is that instead of seeing a return of just 13 cents in the dollar on our original investment, we will now see a return of between 47 cents and 90 cents.
"In real terms, this means the difference of between originally seeing a return of $690,000 to now seeing a return of between $3.3 million and $6 million. This is a wonderful outcome for the community."
Friday's Federal Court ruling follows the success in July of the group action held in London involving a number of organisations including a building society, not-for-profit organisations and several councils, including ADC, across Australia.
"In July we received the news that we would see a return of $3.2 million from the Trustee of CDO's arranged by Lehman Bros as a result of the UK court ruling," Mr Burns said. "Friday's Australian Federal Court ruling would result in a return of an additional $3.3 million, if not more.
"While the Lehman Bros Australia Administrator have indicated that they intend on appealing the Federal Court decision in the High Court, which may take 12 to 18 months to finalise, the Council is buoyed by Friday's outcome."
Mr Burns stated that the Council was slowly recovering investment capital and making every effort to minimize any loss to the ratepayer from these investments.
For further information contact Mr Shane Burns on 6770 3822.
Contact details
Shane Burns
Tel: 02 6770 3822
council@armidale.nsw.gov.au
