"This is day on which a black flag was raised not only over Dankner's compulsive gambling with the public's money, but also over the heads of the capital market and the regulators who are supposed to supervise him," said Labor Party chairwoman MK Shelly Yachimovich today in response to yesterday's disclosure of the investigation against IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) chairman Nochi Dankner for alleged securities fraud.
Yachimovich continued, "For years, including this past year during which it was completely clear that Dankner and IDB were insolvent, the banks and financial institutions continued to send savers and pensioners' money to Dankner. They did this as a personal favor to him, as if this was their private money. It is now clear that there is little chance that the banks and financial institutions will get back the more than NIS 20 billion owed them by Dankner and the pyramid he built."
Yachimovich said, "The capital market and the entire non-bank credit market operated in a no-man's land where the state's laws did not apply and where theft and gambling were the norm."
Yachimovich called on Supervisor of Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Prof. Oded Sarig to order investment institutions to stop gambling with savers' money and to require collateral for their investments in companies like IDB and in tycoons such Dankner. She also reminded Israel Securities Authority chairman Shmuel Hauser that he has the power to prevent dubious parties at interest deals like the one in which Dankner sold failing Ganden Tourism to IDB.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 28, 2012
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