90at9, October 8, 2009: Westpac tax case due

Alex Tarrant presents 90 at 9 in association with ASB. The ruling on Westpac's structured finance case at the High Court is due later this morning. Westpac shares were yesterday placed in a trading halt ahead of the announcement. If the court rules against Westpac it could see the bank have pay around NZ$1 billion back to the IRD, Denise McNabb reports. Here is the Sydney Morning Herald's piece on the looming decision.

BNZ has already had to set aside a NZ$661 million provision after the High Court ruled against it, although BNZ is appealing the decision. ANZ, ASB and Rabobank await the judgement - they're next. All up it is estimated the banks owe around NZ$2.4 billion to the IRD from these transactions.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand dollar almost hit 74 US cents overnight, getting as high as 0.7397 US$ before falling away slightly.

Gold hit US$1,048.20 an ounce overnight, Reuters reported. The rise in Gold however is not so much a gold story as it is more a weak US dollar story.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Westpac
• BNZ
• ASB
• ANZ
• Rabobank
• New Zealand dollar
• Gold
• Alex Tarrant

[bookbinder66]

its sixty seconds of nothing why not call the banks theifs it what they r oh but a bank pays you so its a mistake that the banks try and rob us grow a brain , you cant print 20 trillion dollars and think its all good