Documents handed over in Hoggard suit

By PAULA OLIVER

A civil suit against former Fletcher Challenge chairman Kerry Hoggard for alleged insider trading has finally taken another step forward, with the Securities Commission yesterday confirming it had handed over documents relating to its investigation into the share trading.

The commission had been reluctant to part with some of the information because it was given by informants on condition it was used only by the commission.

The case against Mr Hoggard relates to his buying nearly $635,000 of Fletcher Challenge shares the day before the company's major restructuring was publicly announced in December 1999. The shares jumped when the changes were revealed.

Led by commercial lawyer and Act MP Stephen Franks, a private consortium that included Business Roundtable chief executive Roger Kerr opted to sue Mr Hoggard after a Securities Commission investigation found a law had been breached, but no prosecution followed.

After winning a court battle last December to get the commission and sharebroker JB Were to hand over their documents relating to the trades, the consortium has had to wait almost three months to get the information.

Mr Franks was a strong critic of the commission's "foot dragging" earlier this week when the Government unveiled its tougher insider trading laws. He said that the commission had still not complied with the court order regarding the discovery of the information.

But Securities Commission chief executive John Farrell yesterday said that was incorrect - all of it had been handed over in recent days.

The information includes statements or transcripts of interviews relating to Mr Hoggard's trading, and documents relating to how the inside information affected the market when it was publicly released.

Mr Farrell said there was no basis on which the commission could be criticised for the time-frame taken to deliver the information, because it had been an intensive task. It had not been as simple as handing over the information, because the parameters of the investigation - the trading of Fletcher Challenge shares in December 1999 - were far wider than just Mr Hoggard's trading.

First, information relating to Mr Hoggard had to be extracted, and then legal opinions obtained on how to handle information given to the commission on the condition it would be used only by the commission.

"That took a certain amount of time ... it required quite a lot of consultation, it required guidance from the court on how the law applied to us and to others," Mr Farrell said.