(Antigua Sun) – Some 77 employees of the Stanford International Bank (SIBL) and Stanford Trust were sent home on Wednesday, empty handed and with no word as to whether or not they will receive their severances.
SIBL has been a central figure in the ongoing fraud investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC has charged that the Antigua-based SIBL defrauded investors of some US$8 billion through the sale of high yield Certificates of Deposits, otherwise known as CDs.
Soon after, the US authorities moved quickly and aggressively in seizing all of the bank’s assets and those of its owner Sir Allen Stanford.
The Antiguan employees, however, have been working at the company since, that is, until Wednesday when during a 10:30 am meeting they were told that they had until midday to gather up all their personal effects and leave the compound. No letters, indicating formally that their employment or contracts had come to an end were handed to them by the three-member team of receivers, who have been seeking to ascertain the bank’s assets with a view to returning deposits to the bank’s clients.
Around 20 of the Antiguan employees remain to assist the receivers with their work, according to one affected employee, who asked not to be named.
“We saw it coming, but certainly not this way,” she told the Antigua Sun.
She said the receiver explained to them that they were no longer able to meet the salary requirements of staff and therefore had to let them go and that there was no possibility of the bank ever opening again.
He was unable to answer questions about severance and asked employees to pick up the letters for their last pay cheque next week.
The 77 workers join hundreds more private sector workers, particularly in the hotel sector in Antigua and Barbuda who have been placed on the breadline as a result of the fallout from a struggling global economy.
Stanford was Antigua and Barbuda’s largest private sector employer before the company came under the microscope of the SEC and was placed in receivership.