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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IngotWeTrust who wrote (71463)	6/10/2001 10:17:28 PM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116900

Bre-X shareholders ask that suit be certified as class action lawsuit By LISA BOSE McDERMOTT of the Gazette Staff Lawyers for shareholders who hold worthless Bre-X stock are asking that their lawsuit be certified as a class action lawsuit. Bre-X shareholders struck back at the Canadian gold company and a dozen others when they realized their stock-once worth $4 billion on four Canadian and American stock markets-was worthless. They learned it was worthless when it was discovered that the mines in the Busang area of Indonesia that Bre-X company officials claimed held the largest gold reserves ever did not. Instead, someone had put small amounts of gold in them.- Several lawsuits were filed in Canada by shareholders in hopes of recouping their investments. The only surviving suit in the United States is before U.S. District Judge David Folsom in federal court in Texarkana, filed in 1997. Folsom, in March, allowed the Bre-X lawsuit on behalf of American shareholders against Bre-X, sister company Bresea, Barrick Gold Co., engineering and investment firms, to go forward after several challenges and orders to revise their lawsuit. With a green light to proceed given by Folsom, the shareholders must now have the lawsuit certified as a class action. They have to prove to Folsom that a significant number of plaintiffs are in the same situation. "Cases involving securities fraud are particularly suited to class treatment. The number of potential claimants is usually large, while the amount recoverable by each claimant will ordinarily be low in comparison to litigation costs," according to court papers. The shareholders' lawyers argue that the magnitude and substance of the Bre-X executives' violations in the case make other securities fraud cases pale in comparison. The lawsuit is on behalf of people who held Bre-X stock on the NASDAQ exchange from Aug. 19, 1996, to March, 27, 1997. "Plaintiffs allege that they and other members of the class purchased Bre-X common stock on the NASDAQ at artificially inflated prices during the period when defendants were disseminating false and misleading statements. The artificial price inflation affected all class members," according to court papers. Bre-X and the other companies named in the lawsuit are now bound to respond to the shareholders' request for class certification. texarkanagazette.com