Reporter : Ron Burgandy

Content : Colonial Geared Investments LVR, Storm clients, PJC Bernie Ripoll, Colonial Margin Calls

Tuesday 24^th April 2012

…This article follows on from my latest story “Commonwealth Bank – Determined to be different – Bank grabs PJC ‘lifeline of ignorance’ ” where the CBA was exposed omitting key critical evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee.

The effect of this omission was to mislead the PJC into concluding that the CBA had acted properly because it had no strict contractual obligation to issue a margin call notice.  Whilst this was true, the CBA did not offer, nor did the PJC search for the information showing that the CBA was compelled to issue a notice prior to any sell-down of client assets.  The CGI margin loan terms & conditions clearly required a notice be issued to borrowers before any of the borrowers assets could be disposed of by the bank. This legal requirement to issue a notice prior to asset disposal rendered all CBA selling of borrowers assets where the borrower did not specifically authorise the sale, illegal.

Whilst investigating the above issue The Plain Truth did an analysis on this borrowers account (among many others) and uncovered other valuable nuggets of information about your local friendly (not) CBA bankers.

It still amazes us to find that it is possible for rot to penetrate an organisation to such depths.  As The Plain Truth uncovers one lie, the layers of lies that lay underneath seem to be endless.  Furthermore, the quality of the Commonwealth Banks lies are so weak that they are able to be easily punctured.  This brings us to another problematic question – ‘If the CBA’s lies are so transparent and easily exposed, why then is this not being broadcast by Parliament, ASIC and the Press?’  The reason can only be that the rot has infected areas much wider than The Plain Truth ever contemplated.

The data below that was provided by the CBA to one of its victims includes more cunning deceptions than simply a weak attempt at passing off a ‘one-liner’ as a margin call notice.

The following points should be noted regarding this alleged margin call notice:-

a)      The data provided by CGI was clearly wrong.

b)      The Plain Truths expanded CGI data extract below shows the above information that was provided to client.  On 15^th Oct 08 the client LVR was 95.41% with a margin call LVR of 92.56%.

c)      The Plain Truths expanded CGI data which the bank did not provide to the borrower also shows below that borrowers account went into margin call NOT on the 15^th Oct as claimed by the CBA but on the 14^th Oct.

d)      More significantly the CGI data very clearly indicates that not only was the client in margin call on the 14^th Oct but also in negative equity.  The borrowers LVR was a staggering 104.54% with a margin call LVR of 92.57%.

The purpose of the above analysis is not to test the integrity of the data but to show that with the CGI’s own data (which The Plain Truth will again prove was wrong), the bank was forced to extend the layer of lies in order to cover up the negative equity issue.

This now brings The Plain Truth to the next layer in this seemingly small point which is in fact pivotal to the truth.

The Plain Truth forensic investigators have also calculated that the actual / true margin call for this client occurred on the 8^th Oct 08 when the true LVR was at 94.63% and the margin call LVR was at 90% and not on the 15^th Oct as claimed by the Commonwealth Bank to its borrower OR on the 14^th Oct as shown by the banks own data which has now proved to be wrong.

For the readers information

– On the true day of margin call (8^th Oct) CGI data indicates that the LVR was 87.22% and the margin call LVR was 92.49%.  A buffer of 5.3%.

– On this same day the actual data indicates that the LVR was 94.63% and the margin call LVR was 90%.  In margin call by 4.6%.

In other words the CGI data was indicating that this account was ‘safe’ by 5.3% when in fact it was in margin call by 4.6%.  This is a difference of nearly 10%.

These differences between the CBA’s claims to the borrower and the reality of the borrowers situation made the difference between financial life and death.  The CBA was completely responsible for this, not the borrower, not the advisor and not Storm as the CBA attempted to make this borrower believe.

The Plain Truth has conducted hundreds of similar analyses on Storm client portfolios showing that CBA’s data was wrong in all cases. For the purpose of clarity and to remove all doubt The Plain Truth stands behind the view that each and every CBA borrowers margin loan data details was profoundly defective.

These most important points were not investigated by the PJC and completely ignored by the Parliamentary Joint Committee Chairman Bernie Ripoll.  A possible reason why Mr Ripoll failed to probe these critical issues may have been because he lacked sufficient intellect to understand the matter of the Inquiry.  A more sinister view and one to which The Plain Truth subscribes, may be that Mr Ripoll deliberately and knowingly side-stepped these most relevant CGI terms and conditions in order to shield the CBA.  Either way a monumental miscarriage has occurred desperately requiring a proper and better focused Parliamentary Inquiry for justice to be served.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : Colonial Geared Investments LVR, Storm clients, PJC Bernie Ripoll, Colonial Margin Calls

Bank grabs PJC ‘lifeline of ignorance’

Report : Ron Burgandy

Content : Colonial Margin Calls, PJC Bernie Ripoll, CGI Terms & Conditions, Margin Lending policies and procedures

Monday 16th April 2012

The ability of the Commonwealth Bank to make self-serving statements which are false and misleading knows no bounds. The merry dance into which the CBA has led the Parliamentary Joint Committee with respect to margin call notice requirements to Storm clients had culminated in one of the greatest travesties of justice in Australia’s financial history.

	Bernie Ripoll … the chairman of the federal parliament’s joint committee on corporations and financial services shows his interest during damning evidence against the CBA.

If the situation were not so tragic for the thousands of Storm clients then it would be a fun exercise popping the CBA’s bubbles. Throughout the Parliamentary Joint Committee’s Inquiry into Financial Services & Products the Commonwealth Bank consistently asserted that it had no strict contractual obligation to issue margin call notices to Storm clients. This is in spite of the fact that the CBA issued specific margin call notices to all investors who were non-Storm clients and CBA promotional material consistently implied that clients in margin call would receive a margin call notice outlining the appropriate remedies. One only needs to read the CGI PDS and advertising material to confirm this. It should also be noted that prior to 2008 Storm clients received ‘proper margin call notices’ directly from the CBA.

It appears to have been pretty much determined that CBA in fact had no strict contractual obligation to issue margin call notices. The Parliamentary Joint Committee accepted the CBA’s assertion that it had no contractual obligation to issue a margin call notice as proof that the CBA had fulfilled its margin call notice obligations. There has been mass debate about this point over the last 3 years however The Plain Truth is satisfied that a strict reading of the CGI terms & conditions confirms that in fact the CBA was not obliged to issue margin call notices. Why the CBA felt the need to insist vehemently that they did in fact issue margin call notices was a mystery…until now.

The inconvenient (for the CBA) truth is that whilst the CBA may not have had the strict contractual obligation to issue a margin call notice it was STRICTLY and CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED to issue a notice PRIOR to selling any of the client assets. This obligation explains the CBA’s obsessive need to justify that it did issue margin call notices to clients when it did not. The CBA craftily has asserted that it sent ’3 files a day’ to Storm and that these files constituted margin call notices.

If CBA contends that they were in fact issuing margin call notices to Storm advisors in 2008 then many, many copies of such notices should exist on the Storm Financial servers. The Plain Truth once again exhausted itself in this regard searching for evidence that ultimately doesn’t exist.

The Plain Truth has been able to obtain copies of margin call notices sent by CGI to non-Storm advisors. A copy of such a notice is included here for your reference.

Given that the CBA has been unable or unwilling to produce a similar example (to the one above) that was sent to a Storm advisor or client then clearly either the CBA appointed receivers have either tampered with the Storm database and erased all margin call notices (which does not help their cause and therefore seems unlikely) OR…no margin call notices were actually sent to Storm from CBA – which is in fact what happened.

The amount of detailed information included in CGI’s ‘proper’ notice of margin call is obvious and a far cry from the desperate spin that the CBA is trying to represent to its victims. The above non-Storm margin call notice is similar to CGI margin call notices previously issued. It clearly contains information such as BPAY codes, amounts to pay, reference numbers and options available to the borrower to remedy the margin call.

Below is CBA’s desperate response to one of its victims who requested many times for a copy of the alleged margin call notice the CBA claims to have made to Storm. After these many requests the CBA finally offered the following as evidence of margin call notices being issued. This is part of the information CBA forwarded to Storm in its ‘3 files a day’. The claim that this is a margin call notice is a complete fabrication and a despicable attempt to avoid accountability.

The above pitiful information (even if it was correct – which it wasn’t) did not constitute a margin call notice. Simply compare this with the notices that went out to Storm advisors prior to 2008 and non-Storm advisors prior to and including 2008.

These most important points were not investigated by the PJC and completely ignored by the Parliamentary Joint Committee Chairman Bernie Ripoll. A possible reason why Mr Ripoll failed to probe these critical issues may have been because he lacked sufficient intellect to understand the matter of the Inquiry. A more sinister view and one to which The Plain Truth subscribes, may be that Mr Ripoll deliberately and knowingly side-stepped these most relevant CGI terms and conditions in order to shield the CBA. Either way a monumental miscarriage has occurred desperately requiring a proper and better focused Parliamentary Inquiry for justice to be served.

The Editor
The Plain Truth,
PO Box 2783
New Farm QLD 4005

Content : Colonial Margin Calls, PJC Bernie Ripoll, CGI Terms & Conditions, Margin Lending policies and procedures

Report : Ted Baxter

Content : ASIC & Corporations Law, Storm clients, CBA errors, ASIC Hugh Copley, ASIC authority

Sunday 15th April 2012

A further example of Storms plea’s to ASIC to save clients from CBA’s stranglehold has been uncovered by The Plain Truth. A file note recording a conversation with ASIC by one of Storm’s female executives on the day that Storm went into administration has been sent to The Plain Truth.

The file note made on the 9th Jan 2009 by a Storm executive points to a conversation this executive had with ASIC’s Hugh Copley. The writer of the note expressed concern to ASIC pointing out that numerous errors were contained in CBA’s calculations about the amounts owed to CBA by various Storm clients. Although Hugh Copley knew that ASIC regulated all aspects of Corporation Law with respect to the bank, he chose to follow orders and protect the bank at all costs by simply dismissing Storm’s concerns out of hand. Hugh Copley’s statement that ASIC did not regulate the banks was not only deceitful and a clear lie but also disrespectful and arrogant in the face of the catastrophe which CBA inflicted on Storm’s unsuspecting clients.

Following is a copy of the file note:

The above disregard by Hugh Copley of all CBA related cover-ups is consistent with numerous such cover up’s by ALL LEVELS OF ASIC. A further simple example of this occurred in Dec 08 when CBA approached ASIC and complained. The substance of the complaint was that ‘Storm did not advise clients to consider the consequences of requesting 14 days to consider CBA’s mistaken demands rather than the 48 hours the CBA was unreasonably insisting that all negative equity be cleared by’. This assertion by ASIC was so absurd that it defied all logic unless it was viewed in the context of ASIC covering for CBA. Documents obtained by The Plain Truth from sources inside the liquidator’s offices clearly show that Storm’s advice was both reasonable and proper in the circumstances.

Below are emails sent by Storm to its clients.

Example 1 – Storm email to a client advising them to ask for the CBA details in writing and to request 14 days to consider their position. (ASIC clearly believed that the CBA should not have to justify its demands on clients nor give adequate time for these inaccurate demands to be considered. So much for ASIC protecting the consumer).

Example 2 – Storm email to a client. The contents is self explanatory and The Plain Truth would be very interested could point out what could possibly with the advice contained in this and the above email.

For those of you interested in holding ASIC’s Hugh Copley to account here are his contacts:

[email protected]
07 3867 4700
0434 565 199

If Hugh is not available try any of the following…

Name	Plain Truth Quality Rating	Position	Email	Direct line	Mobile
Gil Bedolach	Low	Investigator	[email protected]	02 9911 2766	0425 311 281
Michael Ryan	Down graded Med to Low+ (Jan 2012)	Deterrence	[email protected]	07 3867 4709	0411 549 043
Chris D’Cotta	unrated	Deterrence	chris.d’[email protected]	02 9911 2212	0421 586 668

*It may be worth noting that the Brisbane office of ASIC is located within the Commonwealth Building in Queen Street.

Note from the Editor:

The Plain Truth wishes to thank all the individuals who have sent material in to us. Please keep it coming. Each piece of information has been a most valuable piece of what is a very intricate jigsaw puzzle. Without your information at our disposal, some of which we know was extremely difficult to obtain, we would not be able to keep constructing the jigsaw nor most importantly would we be able to determine what is fact and what is fabrication. An unforseen benefit of having facts at ones fingertips is to enable us, once fact and fiction are separated, to determine various agendas and see who is playing the ball and who is playing the person.

 

The Editor
The Plain Truth,
PO Box 2783
New Farm QLD 4005

Content : ASIC & Corporations Law, Storm clients, CBA errors, ASIC Hugh Copley, ASIC authority