Under the newly amended securities laws, if no application is received by the SC by 5 p.m. 1 June 1999, the Minister of Finance may dispose of such securities at any time after that period. However, as a policy, the Ministry of Finance has stated that there will be no disposals of any securities until after 1 December 1999.
When such securities are eventually disposed by the Minister of Finance, investors can thereafter apply to claim the sale proceeds from the Registrar of Unclaimed Moneys. They can apply to do so at any time - in perpetuity.
In particular, the SC would like to call upon investors whose share certificates have been stolen, lost or misplaced to act fast as the application procedures in this respect may take some time.
Investors who have lost or had their share scrips stolen are required to obtain replacement certificates from the relevant share registrar solely for the purposes of making an application to the SC. These procedures generally, require the investor to give statutory declarations, undertakings and indemnities as is required by the Companies Act 1965. In addition, an advertisement must be placed by the share registrar before a replacement certificate can be issued.
If such applications to the share registrars are not made by the end of April 1999, the share registrars may not be able and are under no obligation to issue replacement certificates by the 1 June 1999 deadline. The SC will not entertain appeals where no original (replacement) certificates are submitted.
Persons who still hold share certificates which are not exempted from the mandatory deposit requirements after 12.30p.m. of 1 December 1998 would have had the ownership of these securities transferred to the Minister of Finance pursuant to section 29 of the Securities Industries (Central Depositories)(Amendment) (No.2) Act 1998.
For further queries, the Share Recovery Unit can be contacted by phone at (03) 654 8888 or (03) 654 8000 or by fax at (03) 651 5518 or by e-mail at
[email protected].