"Early in the new year there are going to be some settlements in terms of the company and some of the insiders," said Clint Docken, whose firm represents 150 Alberta clients involved in the lawsuit.

  Docken also said all of the assets of Bre-X chief executive officer David Walsh -- estimated at $100 million -- have been frozen.

  Walsh died in June 1998 after he collapsed from a brain aneurysm at his home in the Bahamas.

  Docken estimates the settlements for Calgary investors, who were swindled by the Calgary-based company in 1998, will total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

  But claimants may get more cash if a Texas court decision prohibiting Canadians from getting settlement money out of the U.S. is successfully appealed.

  "The appeal hasn't been filed yet . . . but in the U.S. potential for recovery is limitless," said Docken.

  Bre-X shot to $3 billion in value after claiming its Busang property in Indonesia contained the world's largest reserves of gold.

  Investors lost billions and the company was rendered virtually worthless after an independent report in spring 1997 found the amount of gold at Busang was negligible.