OFFICIAL ASSIGNEES are appointed annually by the committee of the Stock Exchange to collect and administer the estate of a defaulting member on much the same principle as a trustee in bankruptcy collects and administers the estate of a bankrupt. In the words of the rules of the Stock Exchange, their duty is "to obtain from a defaulter his original books of account, and a statement of the sums owing to and by him ; to attend meet ings of creditors; to summon the defaulter before such meetings; to enter into a strict examination of every account ; to investigate any bargains suspected to have been effected at unfair prices; and to manage the estate in conformity with the rules, regulations, and usages of the Stock Exchange." An official assignee must find security amounting to 191000 from two or more members of the Stock Exchange. In the event of his making any default, or misappropriating the property entrusted to his care, or being guilty of dishonesty, the sureties will be called upon to pay. When a broker or jobber has failed, the official assignee publicly fixeethe prices current in the market immediately before the failure, and it is at these prices that any one who has accounts open with the defaulter must close his transactions. The closure is effected by buying of or selling to the defaulter such stocks, shares, or other securities as he may have contracted to take or deliver, the differences arising from the defaulter's transactions being paid to or claimed from the official assignees. The latter cannot claim the differences due to a defaulter's estate
until they become due. In the important case of Ex parte Ward (20 Ch. D., 356), it has been decided that a creditor of a defaulter on the Stock Exchange, who has taken the benefit of a realisation and distribution by the official assignee, is not thereby precluded from afterwards taking ordinary legal proceedings against the defaulter for the recovery of his debt, though he must give credit from what he has received from the official assignee. And by the second case of Ex parte Ward (22 Ch. D., 132) it is decided that " the amount of the differences due by a defaulter on the London Stock Exchange (as fixed by the official assignee of that body under its rules) to a Stock Exchange creditor is a 'liquidated sum ' . . . and will support a bankruptcy petition by the creditor against the defaulter." These decisions were followed in the Court of Appeal in the recent case of Ratclif and Dealtry v. Mendelssohn. See STOCK EXCHANGE.