• 
• 

Published on July 24, 2007

Former chairman of the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority (FRA), Amaret Silaon, will this Friday submit information to rebut a charge of malfeasance by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), a source said yesterday.

The DSI charged Amaret on July 10 with malfeasance related to the FRA's sale of residential loans to Lehman Brothers in 1998 as part of its auctioning off of the assets of 56 defunct financial institutions affected by the financial crisis in 1997.

In a letter sent to the press last week, Amaret said that his personal lawyers and the FRA legal section were drafting an explanation to counter the charge and that the statement "should be ready to be submitted to the DSI within 15 days".

The source said Amaret's written testimony was expected on July 27. Amaret was not available for comment yesterday.

The DSI charges that Amaret, along with former FRA secretary-general Vicharat Vichitvadakan, assisted Lehman Brothers to evade taxes on assets it purchased at the FRA auction in August 1998.

Lehman Brothers won bids for Bt11.52 billion out of a total of Bt24.62 billion worth of corporate loans with property as collateral.

The DSI accused Amaret and Vicharat of negligence and malfeasance by allowing Lehman Brothers to set up a

fund called Global Thai Property Fund to enter into an agreement with FRA on behalf of Lehman Brothers. The department says that this benefited Lehman Brothers in terms of tax payment.

The FRA was set up by the government to manage the bad debts of 56 defunct financial institutions.

It managed to recover Bt271.397 billion from auctioning off a total of Bt747.404 billion worth of assets owned by these institutions in less than two years. The return rate was a satisfactory 36.6 per cent.

The FRA's success helped revive the economy as it turned these unproductive assets into productive ones.

It began auctioning off the assets on June 25, 1998, and started to repay creditors from November 11 , 2000, a gap of two years and four months.