The son of the lawyer behind the Banksia Securities class action has effectively abandoned his appeal of a court judgment that found he knowingly and actively assisted his father in a fraudulent scheme to pocket almost $20 million in inflated fees and commission.
Lawyers behind a scheme to defraud members of a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities have offered $10.6 million to resolve a case that has put them on the hook for at least double that sum.
The litigation funder behind a scam to defraud members of a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has entered liquidation, and the funder’s two surviving directors will be among potential targets of attempts to recover money to pay a $21.7 million court judgment.
The litigation funder behind a fraudulent scheme in a class action over Banksia Securities has entered administration with negligible assets to its name.
The judge who made findings against the son of the mastermind behind the Banksia class action scam may have formed strong views about the 27-year-old’s role before he testified and used the flawed suggestion that he was his father’s right-hand man as an “evidential gap filler”, an appeals court has been told.
Two former barristers ordered to pay at least $21.7 million in damages and costs for their role in a fraudulent scheme to pocket a windfall from the Banksia Securities class action have filed for bankruptcy.
The Banksia Securities class action saga will return to the appeals court, with a lawyer indicating he plans to challenge last month’s ruling that found he knowingly assisted in a plot to defraud tens of thousands of investors in the collapsed lender.
Last week’s judgment denouncing the scandalous behaviour of the legal team running the Banksia Securities class action cast a spotlight on the conduct of lawyers for some of the defendants, asking whether “untenable” defences were maintained beyond an acceptable point in the case.
Lawyers running the scandal-ridden Banksia class action have been struck from the roll of practitioners, will face criminal investigation and must pay group members $11.7 million in damages.
It has been described as the darkest chapter in Victoria’s legal history, an exemplar of all that is terrible with class actions in Australia. A case of greedy lawyers who found their golden egg in a group of retirees who had lost their life savings, never thinking the chickens might come home to roost. Until now.