Too little, too late?

SINGAPORE (Nov 23): Three years after a little-known outfit Iceberg Research accused commodities trader Noble Group of accounting deception, Singapore authorities have finally launched an investigation into the supply chain manager which is undergoing debt restructuring.

Arnaud Vagner, the man behind Iceberg Research, issued a caustic response to the joint move by the authorities, “After three years of hesitation, Singapore’s regulators are rushing to the crime scene.”

Michael Dee, once CEO of Morgan Stanley’s business in Southeast Asia and a former senior managing director at Temasek Holdings, who had raised the same concerns as Iceberg, says, “It may be too late for those small investors who lost all their savings and the institutions who lost billions. However, it is never too late for justice to be served and this is a very welcome development,” he says. “It is satisfying that after three years of only two of us yelling fire from the rooftop that the fire department has finally shown up.”

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