I have sent the following information to Jeff Goldberg of Cranswick-Watson Solicitors, Leeds, who is embarking on Ex-Pat multi-party litigation.

1 : HALIFAX Building Society Document; November, 1996.

Airmailed letter, signed by CEO Mike Blackburn himself, giving full reassurance that if the overseas member's name and address details were accurate, the free shares would indeed be issued.

2 : HALIFAX brochure; December, 1996
"Next steps to Conversion. How it affects you."

The sophisticated flow charts on pages 9-13, referring to qualification for "free" shares, make no reference whatsoever to a requirement to have a particular "address".

Page 16 suggests that, even though fully entitled to shares in accordance with the information provided on the previous pages, overseas residents may be excluded from the proposed share scheme just because Halifax may "consider" it "impracticable" to include them, as it might "consider" the issue to be "onerous". Attention to the words, "consider", "impracticable" and "onerous". All vague and went unexplained. No country name is stated where Halifax might not "consider" issuing shares. And which mutual owner members of the Society ever voted in favour of this?

Many Ex-Pats never even received this document.

3 : HALIFAX "Transfer Document"; January, 1997.
166-page tome of incomprehensible legalese.
Confusing nightmare especially for the elderly members.

"The Contents" pages at the beginning actually SKIP pages 59-67.

Thus, Page 66, the very one containing the vital information for Ex-Pats about the possible requirement for a "registered address" in a so-called "permitted territory" is "conveniently" buried in the middle of the mass of literature.

This Document was either never sent to many Ex-Pats or finally arrived 4-6 months too late by UNpostmarked surface mail. Thus, these members' votes on conversion were excluded.

NO individual airmailed letter, signed by CEO Mike Blackburn (like the one in Nov.'96) was sent this time to Ex-Pat members informing properly (unlike Norwich Union) of the abrupt reversal of the reassurance about the issue of shares to Ex-Pats, that is, the possible requirement to change address.

Why was Holland, out of all European Community countries, considered by Halifax as a "NON-permitted territory"?

4 : Special General Meeting about Halifax Conversion; 24th February, 1997

Meeting held by HALIFAX Board and representatives of members before the The Building Societies Commissioners.

The members' representatives included Messrs. Serge Lourie and Peter Judge of the HALIFAX ACTION GROUP, with a campaign opposed to the proposed conversion from the very start. At this S.G.M. they were representing the over 2,500 complainants on their files!

Mr. Serge Lourie
telefax: 0181 876 7368
e-mail: 100447.527@compuserve.com
59 Burlington Avenue
Richmond
Surrey TW9 4DG
&
Mr. Peter Judge
tel.: 01484 717579
16 Long Ridge
Rastrick
Brighouse
WEST YORKSHIRE HD6 3RZ

5 : SHARE ISSUE: FORMS "A" & "B". Distribution of Forms: April/May, 1997

These forms were NOT sent to Ex-Pats, indicating that Halifax had prematurely excluded them from their shares well before the deadline, 2nd June, Flotation Day, for a possible change of address to a permitted territory.

FORM "B" was the best way Halifax could have INcluded the Ex-Pats in the share allocation. BUT it was not offered! Why?

FORM "B", quite simply and practically (even over the phone), authorised Halifax to sell the member's shares and put the cash straight into his existing Halifax account, quickly and easily done right there in the UK itself.

FORM "B" would have eliminated all the difficulties alleged by Halifax in actually sending shares to certain countries via the Form "A".

6 : Building Societies Commission Document: TRANSFER "DECISION", published 23rd May, 1997

90-page document on the application by HALIFAX BUILDING SOCIETY for confirmation of the proposed transfer of it business to HALIFAX plc".

The document is full of vociferous protests of gross unfairness.

Halifax on record confessing to having omitted country names on envelopes containing vital information and voting form packs addressed to Ex-Pats. Halifax is quoted as stating before The B.S. Commissioners that the members thereby left out were "immaterial" to the outcome of the vote on conversion anyway!

7 : Demutualisation of HALIFAX Building Society, 2nd June, 1997

8 : Document from Mr. J. M. Butler, Lawyer,
Halifax plc Shareholders Services. 21st August,1997

Letter stating that a territory could be considered by Halifax as "not permitted" if it had an "immaterial" number of members: that is, less than 1,000. The Lawyer actually said: "MORE than 1,000". Just another little Halifax misinformation error.

Thus, 999 members per country could be discarded just like this? Which mutual owners of the Society ever voted on this?

Who, except Halifax, knows how many members each country had? An order is required for Halifax to divulge all their client-country information.

9 : Signed document received by Ex-Pat member in USA - confession by a Halifax Branch Manager to an "ERROR" regarding his "permitted" address information

10 : THE BUILDING SOCIETIES ACT 1986, Sections 97-102

11 : UNHAV's DATA BANK giving details on all Halifax and other Building Society claimants found to date, worldwide and in the U.K. itself.