GREECE - The Greek civil servants pension fund TEADY is seeking compensation through the courts from the broker which recommended the purchase of an overpriced bond.
A legal notice issued by the fund said TEADY is seeking €8m in compensation from Greek bond broker Acropolis as the TEADY fund was one of five which bought parts of a €280m state bond but which was later found to be overpriced by around €5m.
"With its investment proposal Acropolis encouraged the fund to go ahead with the investment but in reality intended to use their subsidiaries to bring up the acquisition price and to sell the bonds at an unrealistically high price," TEADY is quoted as saying.
Acropolis had already its broker licence revoked by the government in April before this latest legal action.
Meanwhile, Greek employment minister Savvas Tsitouridis also resigned at the weekend as a result of an alleged involvement of one of his close associates in the Ministry in a stock market scandal before his party New Democracy came to power.
Greek newspaper Kathimerini alleges Tsitouridis' associate Evgenios Papadopoulos helped to manipulate the stock market between 1999-2001 using an offshore company.
Although these latest allegations are unrelated to the current pension fund bond scandal, opposition politicians criticising Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis for using Tsitouridis' "to shield himself".
Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) leader George Papandreou called for immediate elections and said Greece had the unique case of a "limited liability prime minister".
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