INVESTORS who were victims of rat-trading at Standard Chartered Securities (SCS) and who were now seeking compensation would be helped by officials from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), it was confirmed yesterday.
Officials at the SFC said complaints would be investigated and it might force compensation out of SCS, which cheated an undisclosed number of clients out of undisclosed millions of dollars over a period of years.
Standard Chartered chairman Patrick Gillam's trouble-shooter Michael Young said the company would grant compensation for rat-traded customers who showed they had been cheated.
But an SFC spokesman said its complaints department would handle cases if former SCS customers were convinced they had been cheated.
''Normally, you would have some kind of evidence first,'' a spokesman said, ''and anything the SFC collected would remain confidential.
''But if people have complaints, they can bring them to us.'' Previously, it seemed the only avenue open to SCS clients seeking recompense was to sue the firm.