Carnival claim over £15m 'lost' shares
THE credibility of the world's largest share registrar, Computershare, is under threat as it faces a $25m (£15m) claim for ineptitude over its handling of a £3.5bn cruise line merger.
American group Carnival is blaming Computershare, which acts for many of the FTSE's blue-chip firms, for a mess-up in the allocation of new shares in the world's largest cruise line after it took over Britain's P&O Princess in April.
The claim says Computershare's 'gross negligence' resulted in it failing to exchange more than 53m P&O shares into Carnival stock as part of the deal.
It alleges these shares would have converted into nearly 4.5m shares in Carnival had Computershare properly done its job of recording who had accepted and what proportion of new shares on offer each shareholder was entitled to.
Carnival wants Computershare to pay it more than $12.4m to cover what the cruise line has paid out to Chase Nominees, the bank that acted for P&O investors who missed out on the shares.
Its concurrent claim for negligence and breach of contract seeks another $12.4m in damages plus legal costs - estimated to be a couple of million pounds and counting - and interest, standing at about $365,000 and racking up a further $3,000 a day.
A spokeswoman for Computershare said: 'We don't believe we're liable for losses suffered by Carnival but we are unable to comment as the issue has not been resolved.'
