THE financial calm of the business hub of the South West - Cork’s South Mall - abruptly shattered when the city’s only homegrown stockbroking firm went to the wall.

A junior partner in failed Cork stockbrokers, W&R Morrogh, has pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to fraudulently converting almost Stg £17,000.

IRISH Financial Service Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) chief executive Liam O’Reilly is facing legal action from disgruntled clients of failed stockbroking firm W&R Morrogh unless he orders the firm’s receiver to return €10m in shares to the investors.

ON this day three year’s ago the country’s only non-Dublin based stockbroking firm W&R Morrogh ceased trading following a massive internal fraud at the firm on Cork’s South Mall.

THE Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) has set out its stall for the next three years placing a strong emphasis on a fair deal for the consumer and strict ethical behaviour by the financial institutions.

THE Investor Compensation Company is to take a hit of almost 8 million following the collapse of Cork stockbroking firm W&R Morrogh and the meter is still ticking.

THE Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has conceded that the liquidation of stockbrokers W&R Morrogh has exposed major weaknesses in Irish law, leading to an unsatisfactory process of winding up the firm.

THE trustees of Irish pension funds could be in breach of their fiduciary responsibilities, if they permit the funds they oversee to hold billions of euro in equity investments in electronic form, it emerged last night.

FINANCE Minister Charlie McCreevy is investigating changing legislation following a High Court ruling which permits the confiscation of client funds held in trust to pay the costs of a receiver.

Conor Keane column

DISGRUNTLED clients of defunct stockbroking firm W&R Morrogh are to mount a Supreme Court challenge to a High Court decree which ordered that more than €5 million in shares held in their names should be used to pay the estimated €3m costs of receiver Tom Grace.

THE stockbroking community has been thrown into turmoil by a High Court judgment which undermines the secure status of billions of euro worth of shares held in trustee accounts and electronically.

Teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo implicated his alleged accomplice as an equal partner in their shooting spree, with John Allen Muhammad acting as a spotter and calling out shots, prosecutors said.

MORE than €2.2 million in compensation payments is to be sent out to 579 clients who lost cash when stockbroking firm W&R Morrogh collapsed 15 months ago with a shortfall of €10 million.