SEC to restore licenses of some ‘collapsed’ Fund Management Companies soon

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said it will in the coming days restore the licenses of some fund management companies whose licenses were revoked in 2019.

This was disclosed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rev. Daniel Ogbamey Tetteh on Tuesday 9th June, 2020 on the Citi Breakfast Show.

He said eight of the firms appealed to its Administrative Hearing Committee and some of them have been successful, hence the decision to restore their licenses.

“There were eight firms that appealed, and this was soon after the revocation. They appealed against the revocation. So, the Administrative Hearings Committee, which excludes myself and the executives have within this period also been meeting the various firms and hearing their cases. And I can confirm that they have recently completed hearing these cases and some of them were successful, others were not. If you are successful, it means that, your appeal to have the revocation lifted has been successful,” he said.

“We will be publishing the list in the coming days because when we did the revocation exercise, we published it. We will be publishing in the coming days, the list of those who have been successful and those who were not successful. It will be clear so that everyone will know where these companies stand,” he added.

Regarding the firms that went to court, Rev. Ogbamey Tetteh said such cases are at various stages.

“There were four companies that went directly to court to ask for a judicial review for them regarding the revocation decision. It hasn’t been fully determined. They are at various stages,” he added.

The SEC CEO explained that there is a provision in the Securities Industries Act for anyone who has an issue to do with any decision of the Commission or any issue within the industry to make an appeal to the Administrative Hearing Committee of SEC or the courts.

Affected fund management companies that resorted to the Administrative Hearing Committee according to Rev. Ogbamey are Monarch, Intermarket formally known as CDH, Black Shield/GoldCoast, Cripa Capital, Cron Capital, and Frontline Capital.

Those who went to court include APEX Capital, Ideal Finance, Omega Capital and First Bank.

Background

The financial sector clean-up  commenced under the Akufo-Addo administration in August 2017. It led to the collapse of nine universal banks, 347 microfinance companies, 39 microcredit companies or money lenders, 15 savings and loans companies, eight finance house companies, and two non-bank financial institutions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2019 also revoked the licenses of 53 Fund Management Companies.

SEC explained that the revocation follows the companies’ failure to “return client funds which remain locked up and in a number of cases, have even folded up their operations.”

The action was taken pursuant to Section 122 (2) (b) of the Securities Industry Act, 2019 (Act 929) which authorizes SEC to revoke the license of a market operator under some circumstances.

Included in the list of the defunct companies was Black Shield Fund Management, a subsidiary of Groupe Nduom, formerly known as Gold Coast.

SEC branches of the Consolidated Bank of Ghana Limited (CBG), were selected to receive claims from clients who have their funds locked up in the affected companies.

The banks were tasked to accept relevant documents for the validation of the investment claims.

According to SEC, the said branches serving as agents were authorized “to ascertain and validate details of investors and their investments with these institutions at the time of the revocation to facilitate the administration of the Government pay-out of a capped amount to affected investors.”

The SEC boss says the process is ongoing to pay these clients, but could not say when that will happen.