Commonwealth Bank and its Bankwest division have won a partial reprieve from the Royal Commission into banking misconduct.A topic of spirited interest to some aggrieved business borrowers - and also the subject of a class action - the most colourful conjecture surrounding CBA's late 2008 rescue and takeover of Bankwest have been ruled as being of no further interest to the royal commission."In consultation with you, we have made the decision that none of these 'ulterior motive theories' warrant further consideration by case studies during these hearings," Michael Hodge, counsel assisting told the commissioner, Kenneth Hayne, yesterday morning.Instead, the commission will consider "case studies next  week that concern actions taken with respect to customers of Bankwest after that acquisition," Hodge said.Hodge explained that the Bankwest case studies that will be raised relate to "the relevant customers reviewed as part of what was referred to as Project Magellan, an internal project of CBA. "Those case studies will, we anticipate, allow you to consider the exercise by the bank of its contractual rights in circumstances in which it wished to mitigate the risk to itself of exposure to a particular loan or lending to a particular industry."CBA agreed to buy Bankwest from distressed UK banking giant HBOS at the height of the 2008 financial crisis at a price of A$2.1 billion.In his opening for this third round of hearings of the royal commission, Hodge devoted a slab of time to narrate the behind the scenes assessment of what he labelled as "ulterior motive theories." Hodge said that "there are various ulterior motive theories and they are not consistent with each other, however, the common element is that they attribute to CBA in its dealings with the Bankwest loan book a motive to systematically default loans and to default loans for reasons not concerned with what CBA perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be the risk of a particular loan or lending to a particular industry."He said that "outside of these hearings, significant work has been undertaken by the commission to look at the history of the various theories, ... the consideration of those theories in other forums, and the extent to which there is any evidence to support them."Hodge added that the cornerstone complaint - the clawback ulterior motive theory - "has also been considered by the Small Business Ombudsman [Kate Carnell]."Having engaged with the ombudsman, Hayne's probe won't take the topic any further. "The view she has expressed in writing to the commission about the clawback ulterior motive theory is unequivocal," Hodge said. "She describes it as false and explains that, in her view, there was no capacity in the share sale deed for a clawback of performing loans that were present at acquisition and which, post-acquisition, became impaired."Hodge told Hayne that "based on our own analysis we share the views of the ombudsman that the clawback ulterior motive theory is incorrect. Hodge also addressed what he called "the second ulterior motive theory - one that CBA impaired loans on the Bankwest loan book to