Latest / Best of Business / Rachael Reed KC: lawyer defending claimants in the CCCFA case calls for investigation into multi-billion dollar impact

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Rachael Reed KC: lawyer defending claimants in the CCCFA case calls for investigation into multi-billion dollar impact · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 2: So to the ongoing question of why it is that
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  Speaker 2: the government is changing the law to stop key we
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  Speaker 2: customers taking class action against two Wosie banks. It's being
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  Speaker 2: speculated that the reason the government's doing that is because
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  Speaker 2: of the size of the potential payout. The government was
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  Speaker 2: told it could be as much as twelve point nine
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  Speaker 2: billion dollars, which seems extraordinary. Rachel read Casey is one
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  Speaker 2: of the lawyers representing the class action plaintiffs and with us.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Rachel, Hello, how are you Tonac quick?
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  Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you. Twelve point nine is too high, right.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, it's fantastical. It's not just too high. It doesn't
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  Speaker 3: have any grasp of reality. And there are several reasons
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  Speaker 3: for that. A and Z at this point claims in
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  Speaker 3: respect of its breaches that only seventeen thousand customers were affected,
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  Speaker 3: and says a claim of three hundred million against it
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  Speaker 3: is too high. But A and Z represents some thirty
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  Speaker 3: percent of the market. Now, if they represent thirty percent
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  Speaker 3: of the market and three hundred million is too high
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  Speaker 3: for their breaches. How on earth would you ever get
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  Speaker 3: to twelve point nine billion sector wide? It just doesn't
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  Speaker 3: make any sense on that first fundamental level.
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  Speaker 2: Where do you think it actually sits?
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  Speaker 3: Then? Well, I couldn't tell you where it actually sits,
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  Speaker 3: because we need more information from the banks in relation
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  Speaker 3: to exactly the number of customers affected and exactly the
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  Speaker 3: interest in fees and paid that would need to be
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  Speaker 3: recouped under the current legislative provisions. But there are all
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  Speaker 3: sorts of other reasons that this model and this figure
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  Speaker 3: just simply doesn't work. It assumes that the planters win
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  Speaker 3: at every point in the litigation and also ignores the
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  Speaker 3: reality of settlement, and it talks about a sect to
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  Speaker 3: wide liability. But these are claims that could have been
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  Speaker 3: made any time for breaches for twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen,
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  Speaker 3: and there are statutory limitation periods and respect of these
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  Speaker 3: breaches of either three or six years. Now. If they
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  Speaker 3: had come to light throughout that time or not long afterwards,
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  Speaker 3: there wouldn't be another claim that would be in existence
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  Speaker 3: that could be pursued. Not only that, it's got to
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  Speaker 3: be financially viable to do so against a smaller lender.
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  Speaker 3: And the fact is, none of these other cases have
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  Speaker 3: been taken. This is the only one that's on foot.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So did the Reserve Bank just fail to do
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  Speaker 2: its calculations properly or did they deliberately and artificially inflate
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  Speaker 2: this number.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't accuse them of deliberately and artificially inflating them.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't do that. What we don't have is any
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  Speaker 3: transparency in relation to their modeling. We can see that
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't make sense, but the relevant parts of the
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  Speaker 3: modeling have been obscured through reductions and Official Information Act responses,
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  Speaker 3: so we can't actually behind it. And the difficulty here
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  Speaker 3: is that retrospective legislation is extraordinary in itself, and it's
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  Speaker 3: been used here in an extraordinary way to deliberately target
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  Speaker 3: litigation that's been on foot for four years. And where
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  Speaker 3: you have got that extraordinary use of power in an
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  Speaker 3: extraordinary way, it's underlying foundation must be unassailable, and it
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  Speaker 3: must be transparent so that someone can contradict it if
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  Speaker 3: it deserves to be contradicted, and we don't have that
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  Speaker 3: at all here. So none of that has occurred.
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  Speaker 2: How do you rate the chances that Brian Roach actually
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  Speaker 2: gives you what you want. What you want, which is
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  Speaker 2: an investigation here.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I would hope that he would undertake his functions
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  Speaker 3: in a proper manner, and I consider that there is
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  Speaker 3: a foundation for it, which was carefully set out in
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  Speaker 3: a letter to him, with the concerns that we have.
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  Speaker 3: So I would hope that he would take that seriously
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  Speaker 3: and do what is right in the circumstances here. This
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  Speaker 3: is quite an extraordinary position that we found ourselves in.
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  Speaker 2: It really does seem this way. Hey, Rachel, thank you
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  Speaker 2: very much, appreciate it. That's Rachel.
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