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Bridgecorp boss Rod Petricevic and the failed finance company's other directors may face court action from the Securities Commission seeking compensation for investors who were misled by the company's prospectus, other offer documents and advertising.
As indicated in its first report on the company's affairs after it collapsed in July, owing debenture stock and unsecured capital note investors $458 million, receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers have forwarded information to the commission.
Commission director of primary markets Kathryn Rogers confirmed that information was being used to establish whether the company's prospectus and other documents published after last October contained misleading information.
Rogers said from that time forward, the commission gained new powers enabling it to take court action to seek compensation for affected subscribers if there had been a materially misleading statement in a prospectus, investment statement or advertising.
If the commission goes ahead with court action, it would seek compensation or pecuniary penalties from the company's directors and promoters of securities, rather than the company itself.
Apart from Petricevic, Bridgecorp's directors were Bruce Davidson, Rob Roest, Peter Steigrad and Gary Urwin.
"We are continuing to investigate but we won't be able to comment on our investigations while they are in progress," she said yesterday.
The commission was awaiting further information from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Bridgecorp was the largest of the nine finance company collapses over the last 16 months and its failure sparked an investor rout that has contributed to subsequent failures.
Meanwhile, the commission and Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel yesterday said regulations giving trustees greater powers to monitor finance company performance would take effect at the end of the week.
The regulations stem from Securities Commission recommendations which were accepted by Cabinet last week.
