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Class Action funders revel in bank distrust

27 April 2018 5:08PM
APRA and the RBA and other regulators - not banks - will be the defendants in a class action centred on the questionable home loan finance supply practices of Australian banks over the last decade or longer.Roger Brown, an Australian living in the UK for many decades, is the entrepreneur behind an action likely to be filed with the Federal Court of Australia.After more than six years and 8651 tweets under the handle @bankcustomers, Brown is ready to roll, if guarded, with all details.Brown will be an equal partner in a litigation funding joint venture with a known funder involved, if all pans out as he plans.Brown will confirm the name of the law firm in coming days."I have done all the heavy lifting in developing the litigation, during a six year period of hard research, much of the time being ridiculed for suggesting that banks were corrupt and customers would be wiped out. "The class action will not be against any bank," Brown outlined in an email. "It will be against the Federal Government and its controlled bodies the RBA and APRA."The claim will "fit within a particular and narrow grouping of mortgage borrowers." Brown said."This is a critical factor in establishing a meritorious class action."Trevor Hall, a Sydney solicitor (and working with Shine Lawyers) is one force behind an existing class action aimed at Commonwealth Bank, motivated in part by the mortgage misconduct yet to be proven. The first round of the Hayne commission leaves little doubt over the quality of material to be uncovered as litigation proceeds.APRA will be the showpiece defendant, its catalogue of action and inaction providing ammunition for the @bankcustomers and Hall actions.What else can the public infer from damning board risk committee reports and management risk presentations other than that things were pretty hopeless, in mortgages, in advice, in governance and across the major banks' other business lines.Next week's report of the APRA- prudential panel on Commonwealth Bank will be further fodder for class actions.Cyclonic is what the report of the Laker panel may prove to be. John Laker, once APRA chief, has to share the final report with Wayne Byres on Monday. It may be released right on the knocker to calm financial markets at the start of next week, or else APRA and Treasury will leave the markets hanging.

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