Reporter: Tricia Takanawa

Content : Damian Scattini floods, Storm Redcliffe, 4BC Brisbane floods

Tuesday 29^th May 2012

One can often tell when some people are not telling the truth because their lips are moving.  It seems that firm-hoping Damian Scattini, momentarily at Maurice Blackburn lawyers, may fit this category.

In an interview on 4BC on the 22^nd May 2012, Mr Scattini asserted in effect that for the term independent to apply in the event of litigation the entity claiming to be independent entity must not be paid by one side or the other.  In other words – independence can not be claimed where one side of litigation is footing the bill.

In early 2009 a meeting was held at Redcliffe involving Storm clients where Mr Damian Scattini of Slater & Gordon (at that time) was also present.  Mr Scattini was asked a question from the floor about whether he believed that CBA appointed and paid for evaluators would be independent.  Mr Scattini answered an unqualified “YES”.

Mr Scattini’s inconsistency between the 4BC interview and the Redcliffe meeting was challenged in an email exchange by The Plain Truth (see below email) and he was asked to respond.  To avoid any possible criticism of unfairness, The Plain Truth is including the email with the questions from The Plain Truth in full and the email with Mr Scattini’s response in full.

 Mr Scattini’s email response below was approximately 90 words long with more than ample opportunity to provide a straight answer.

Damian Scattini’s response was to deftly avoid answering the question by diversion.  He pointed out spelling errors and the fact that The Plain Truth provided no telephone number among other irrelevancies.  The Plain Truth has noted that in many of Mr Scattini’s appearances he uses derision and demonising tactics to whip his selected group into a frenzy to support his quest for business. On a more positive note this guy is very skilled at what he does, slick and smooth, dresses the part and dare we say even looks good doing it (just ask him).

The problem with people who lie is that they need to have a good memory or they end up contradicting themselves in whatever web they are currently spinning.  We will give Mr Scattini points for at least being consistent in his deceit.  We believe he does not discriminate to whom he is prepared to lie.  It appears that he will lie to anybody.

See our previous story Slater & Gordon and CBA alliance dupes Storm clients for more evidence of Damian Scattini’s ethics.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : Damian Scattini floods, Storm Redcliffe, 4BC Brisbane floods

Reporter : Jimmy Olsen

Content : Storm Financial advice, CGI margin lending rules, Storm re-participation strategy, CBA & Storm.

Friday 25^th May 2012

Click here to view Part 1 of “Storm Financials re-participation strategy: Did it exist?” 

To view Part 2, please read on…

THE BIG QUESTION

Q: Did Storm really have a successful re-participation strategy available as they claimed? 

If so, how did it work?

Yes.

By way of illustration The Plain Truth has commissioned the analysis of a typical Storm portfolio for the purpose of highlighting the execution of Storms re-participation strategy.  This strategy generally involved the following steps in the re-participation program for the many Storm clients analysed.  For the purpose of confidentiality we will call this example – Storm client ‘X’.

1)      The margin lender (in this example Colonial Margin Lending) would record, track and maintain on its Empire margin lending system each clients’ current LVR and margin call LVR among other things. (click here to see a statement obtained by The Plain Truth and made by a former CGI manager)

2)      Using the information in 1) above, CML would detect immediately when the clients LVR exceeded their margin call LVR and would consequently issue and forward a margin call notice directly to the client.  The notice would inform the client that their loan is in margin call, by how much and offer some remedial options.

3)      At the same time CML would send a copy of the clients’ margin call notice to Storm – including advice that this copy of the notice was for information only. (click here to see notice)

4)      Clients prompted by their margin call notice would contact Storm and then Storm advisors would analyse clients’ personal situation and assist them with advice on how to handle the margin call in their circumstance.

5)      If the client agreed with the advice Storm would then assist with the execution of the remedy.  In all cases, including this one, analysed by The Plain Truth the clients accepted the advice and the advice worked.

The various options including those outlined by the margin lender by which a Storm client could remedy a margin call were a) by offering additional security (cash or equities) as collateral to the margin loan, b) by simply paying down the margin loan using surplus cash, c) by selling secured equities and using the proceeds to pay down margin loan debt or d) by switching securities within the portfolio from lower base LVR assets to higher base LVR assets (e.g. switching from equities that were held at 60% or 70% to cash which had a 100% base LVR).

a) Offering additional security (cash or equities) as collateral to the margin loan

Whilst this option takes a portfolio out of margin call it relies on having surplus cash or equities available which can then not be used for other purposes. The disadvantage of this option is that should markets continue to fall and further margin calls be issued then one is left in a position whereby their surplus (spare gunpowder) has been used.  This option is a ‘punt’ as it requires market recovery to occur relatively quickly and can not afford further market declines.

b) Simply pay down the margin loan using surplus cash

This option is as above with the slight additional advantage that the same amount of cash would have given the portfolio a small amount of additional buffer compared to option a).  A further disadvantage for clients where interest was prepaid (as it was for most Storm clients) is the prepaid interest component may need to have been broken and that the margin lender would then apply an early repayment penalty.  For those clients who had prepaid their interest, in addition to the early repayment penalty, the interest that the cash would have earned staying as cash was foregone.

c) Sell secured equities and use any proceeds to pay down margin loan debt

Once again whilst this option addressed the margin call, it progressively reduced the size of the portfolio in unit terms.  A further disadvantage is that when markets eventually turn and begin their recovery one is unable to effectively re-purchase the sold equities at anywhere near the same quantity as when sold on the way down.  This is due to buffer constraints within the margin loan terms and conditions.  Effectively this option severely destroys the overall size of the portfolio.  To paraphrase Storm – ‘this approach is a killing of the chickens’.  Furthermore, the interest issue of point b) above was a disadvantage.

d) Switch securities within the portfolio from lower base LVR assets to higher base LVR assets

This option was the most elegant as it resolved margin calls and preserved the asset base of the portfolio yet had none of the disadvantages of the other options such as early repayment penalties, burning of gunpowder and ‘killing chickens’.  This option had the ability to be used progressively and therefore it was irrelevant whether future movements of the market were positive or negative.

When this solution was applied in a falling market the effects where that future market falls had less impact on the portfolio as part of the portfolio was in cash and therefore ‘inoculated’.  Also a greater buffer was achieved (distance to margin call) as cash had a 100% base LVR compared to equities which were traditionally around 60% or 70%.

Conversely, as the market eventually turned positive and began to rise, the previously ‘inoculated’ cash components of a portfolio would also cause resistance to the overall rise in the portfolio.  Only the portion of the portfolio that was in equities would gain from any rises in the equity markets.  The Storm re-participation strategy at that time involved switching back from cash to equities at around the same levels as the switch out occurred thus allowing the portfolio to have resisted the market fall and go back into growth mode as markets recovered.

As a consequence of the crash of 2001-03 Storm at the time developed this re-participation strategy.

The Plain Truth has obtained evidence showing that this strategy had been previously implemented successfully. The following sequence of slides shows:

1)      Graphics illustrating the switch to cash (inoculation) and re-participation strategies

2)      The various paperwork and documents that were sent to CGI to facilitate the strategies.

These transactions were not only done with the full knowledge and agreement of CBA but it is clear with their co-operation (as the switchbacks were done whilst clients were in buffer) and on a basis that a clear procedure had been developed and been accepted by both Storm and CBA going forward.

Below is the Colonial First State statement showing and confirming the above transaction, among others, as advised by Storm, requested by the client through Colonial Margin Lending and subsequently executed and confirmed.

Clearly Storm had a re-participation process and strategy in place in the event of significant downward market volatility that had been successfully tested in moderate to rough conditions.  Clearly this strategy was in cooperation with the CBA and implemented following CGI margin call notices sent to the client by the bank.  Clearly the bank cooperated in the early 2000’s.  Just as clearly Colonial Geared Investments failed in its administration and management of its own margin lending product in 2008 and cleaned up its mess by destroying the client and conveniently blamed Storm as the scapegoat.  In 2008 the CBA’s attacks on its clients with the cooperation of ASIC who prevented Storm clients being able to communicate with Storm for assistance in late 2008 resulted in monumental losses for many Storm clients.  Both the CBA and ASIC covered each others backs with their lies but now thanks to the falling out amongst thieves the client in this example along with many other Storm clients have the opportunity to recover compensation from BOTH the Commonwealth Bank and ASIC.  But more about this claim against ASIC in the next article.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : Storm Financial advice, CGI margin lending rules, Storm re-participation strategy, CBA & Storm.

Reporter : Jimmy Olsen

Content : Storm Financial advice, CGI margin lending rules, Storm re-participation strategy, CBA & Storm.

Tuesday 22^nd May 2012

Note from Editor – If you thought that getting to the truth would involve a little bit of light reading then The Plain Truth apologises for the hugely technical information we are about to dump upon you.  Our choices are to go up the emotional pathway as most blogs, forums and journalists tend to favour because it gets a quick response OR to take long and correct route and obtain the truth by exposing the technical foundations that make it up.  Again we apologise for the length of this article but believe it necessary. Enjoy…

On 8 Oct 2008 Storm Financial wrote to all its clients seeking authority to re-balance their asset allocation by switching “UP TO 100%” of their portfolio from equities to cash.  The amount to be switched would ultimately depend on each individual client personal positions with factors such as existing cash reserves, current LVR and buffer being considered individually. 

Storm claimed the purpose for these switches was to reduce the effect on the individual portfolios of further market falls.  This then leaves each portfolio in a position to be able to re-participate back into an improving equities market (whenever that should occur) by reallocating portfolio assets back from cash to equities.  Storm further claimed that the margin lenders, in particular Commonwealth Bank, had acknowledged such a re-participation strategy, that this re-participation had been used successfully in the past and that the margin lenders (CGI) facilitated this by allowing switching to occur whilst portfolios were still in buffer.

In any event if such a Storm strategy existed it was prevented from being implemented by the joint actions of ASIC preventing Storm from communicating with its clients in Dec 08, CBA’s data defects and denials of wrongdoing and the CBA wrongly forcing Storm into administration on the 8^th Jan 09.

The Plain Truth has investigated Storms re-participation claims.  We can now report the results of this investigation and give answers raised about Storms claims.

Q: Did Storm Propose a Switching and Re-participation Strategy in 2008?

Yes.

The following is an extract from the 8 Oct 08 Storm letter to clients which clearly identifies a proposed switch from equities to cash.

Q: Did Storm claim that it had the co-operation of the margin lenders for re-participation?

Yes.

The Plain Truth has obtained an internal Storm email dated 28 July 08 provided by a former employee of Storm.  This email was distributed by ex Storm advisor and senior executive Mr David McCulloch who was also a former senior banker with the CBA.  Given his previous experience and banking knowledge Mr McCulloch was responsible within Storm for most of the high level negotiations between Storm, the banks and margin lenders.  The following extract from his email to Storm advisors and staff clearly indicates that Storm had the co-operation of margin lenders to facilitate clients’ re-entry back into the equities markets.  Most importantly, this co-operation existed even whilst clients’ margin loans were in buffer.

Q : Did Storm have formal permission from CGI to transact whilst in buffer for re-participation outside the normal terms and conditions?

Yes.

The following is an extractfrom a letter dated 16 Sep 03 and sent from the then General Manager of Colonial Margin Lending, Mrs Phyllis Sequeira, to Mr David McCulloch as part of his Storm duties.  You will note that this relatively small extract confirms:

1)      Storm clients were allowed to transact whilst in buffer,

2)      That Storm had the co-operation of the banks,

3)      Acknowledge that Storm has a re-participation (switching) strategy.

Q: Did in fact the CBA acknowledge re-participation?

Yes.

As can be seen in the following extract from an email authored by CGI’s John Clothier on 19 Nov 08 to Storm, it is quite clear that the CBA recognised the need for re-participation after CGI was able to resolve clients positions, with the cooperation of Storm.

It is interesting to note that the CBA was consistent in its recognition and cooperation with Storms re-participation strategy that was first implemented during the crash of 2001-2003.

THE BIG QUESTION

Q: Did Storm really have a successful re-participation strategy available as they claimed? 

If so, how did it work?

…to be continued on Friday 25th May 2012.

(click here to view the Conclusion to ‘Storm Financials re-participation strategy: Did it exist?’)

Reporter: Tricia Takanawa / Jimmy Olsen

Content : ASIC Storm court proceedings, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley ASIC, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, CBA Storm compensation model

Saturday 19^th May 2012

…continued from “Part II – ASIC liable for ‘gagging’ compensation”.

Click here to view Part I.

Click here to view Part II.

Saturday 3 January 2009 @ 9.47pm

The Plain Truth includes the following email from Storm to ASIC which we think speaks for itself and is a true and fair summary of events and accords with evidence The Plain Truth has in its possession.

In summary the issue is quite simple.  The CBA made a monumental error in its data and margin call transmissions and looked around for a convenient scapegoat.  Once the CBA decided to make Storm and its advisors the patsies, the CBA then needed the appearance of authority behind its attacks.  To this end the CBA recruited ASIC with a fable and gained credibility by being the FIRST to complain.  Our resident psychologist tells us that the best form of defence is to attack.  By complaining about Storm to ASIC first, even though it now turns out to have been with a false accusation, the CBA was able to take the offensive thus making Storm and its clients ‘the defendants’.  This left both Storm and its clients with little choice but to defend themselves in the face of the CBA’s relentless onslaught thus consuming precious resources and advice time that would otherwise have been used for the benefit of Storm clients.

ASIC, with its obligation to be seen to respond, was seduced by the CBA’s cunningly crafted and convenient solution handed to it on a platter by the CBA.  ASIC took the CBA bait and swallowed the hook, line and sinker.  Consequently ASIC did not bother investigating the substance of what the CBA was saying, but rather took it as gospel.  The CBA orchestrated events in such a way which ensured ASIC could only take the view that Storm had to be shut down.  Accordingly ASIC gagged Storm resulting in billions of dollars of client losses.  Whether ASIC was simply duped by CBA, was naive or was part of a combined strategy is irrelevant.  What is relevant is that ASIC fumbled the ball BIG TIME resulting in enormous collateral damage to Storm clients.

ASIC, MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT.  YOU WILL COMPENSATE FORMER STORM CLIENTS FOR THE DAMAGE YOU CAUSED THEM AND THE PLAIN TRUTH WILL EXPOSE AND MAKE PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE THE LIKES OF TONY D’ALOISIO, JEREMY COOPER, HUGH COPLEY AND DEBRA KOROMALIS AMONG OTHERS.

The minor players in all of this drama were the Storm clients who were incidental to the CBA and ASIC main game against Storm.  With their tenacity, courage and refusal to be bullied into submission it now turns out that the Storm clients have ended up the main game.  Whilst some Storm clients are in a very difficult position others who are barely treading water are trying to assist those who are drowning.  Such situations are indicative of the never say die spirit that is so apparent within the majority of the Storm client group.  As in any situation there are the few who think of no-one else but themselves and direct all their energies to the pursuit of fixing their own position at the expense of others. Thankfully there are only a very small number of such individuals.  The Plain Truth will not identify these individuals until everything is fixed and over with at which time The Plain Truth will publish their actions and names.

As has been clearly obvious during the 3+ year saga, corporate giants such as the Commonwealth Bank, only respond to their political and bureaucratic cohorts and are impervious and disdainful of their public and consumers.  It is equally obvious that the bureaucrats and politicians only respond to public and voter pressure.  Accordingly if you want the bank to respond to you it is imperative that you understand that you will only get them to respond through the bureaucrats (ASIC) and the politicians.

In spite of ASIC’s protests that they did not ‘gag’ Storm following discussions with the CBA, The Plain Truth has very clear evidence that ASIC was influenced by the CBA in Dec 08 and acted on CBA’s statements then.  These actions by ASIC led to ASIC preventing Storm and its advisors from communicating with you and other Storm clients at a time when CBA was at its most destructive and a time if there ever was one when you most needed help, guidance and Storms advice.  The Plain Truth is about to publish evidence on the website proving that ASIC prevented Storm from speaking to you at the most critical time and evidence that it conspired with CBA to ‘take down Storm and its clients’.  The Plain Truth has also in its possession evidence showing that Storm had already prepared advice which would have succeeded in not only keeping you in the game but allowing you to re-participate and re-enter the market as time progressed.  If the actions of CBA’s executive were depraved then the despicable nature of the actions of some within ASIC including Tony D’Aloisio, Hugh Copley, Jeremy Cooper, Debra Koromilas and others takes depravity to a depth that even the masters (CBA) were unable to reach.

THE GOOD NEWS is that once ASIC’s actions are exposed it opens up ASIC to the liability for its actions in contributing greatly to your losses and hence the requirement that ASIC compensate you.

For those of you interested in holding Hugh Copley to account here are his contact details and please, please make sure you keep a record of the time and date of any conversation, who you spoke to and the details of your discussion.  The best way to do this is to get yourself a little digital recorder, put your phone on speaker and hit the record button otherwise keep a written record.  Please forward to The Plain Truth through our contact us tab the details of your conversations.  Thank you.

[email protected]

07 3867 4700

0434 565 199

ASIC Storm court proceedings, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley ASIC, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, CBA Storm compensation model

Reporter: Tricia Takanawa / Jimmy Olsen

Content : ASIC court documents, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley ASIC, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, ASIC & CBA compensation

Thursday 17^th May 2012

…continued from “Part I – ASIC liable for ‘gagging’ compensation”.

Click here to view Part I.

Monday 22 December 2008 @ 2.57pm

Further requests came from ASIC to extend the ‘interim’ undertaking which already was in place.  By now ASIC has figured out that Storm was reluctant to commit financial suicide and allow ASIC to further imperil 3,000 Storm clients by CBA’s actions.  Agreeing to and signing the already drafted ASIC EU that prohibited ‘Storm Financial, its servants and agents, from providing financial services to its gearing clients for 12 months’ would have done just that.  It seems ASICs cunning solution was to simply keep extending the ‘interim’ / temporary undertaking under the guise that a more formal documented EU eventually be signed. At a later date ASIC tried to back-pedal by reducing the 12 mths to 3 mths and claiming that shutting a business down for 3 mths wouldn’t send it to the wall.

As can also be seen in the email above, mention of proposed changes to ASIC’s EU was suggested by Storm to ASIC.  The Storm directors and advisors were extremely concerned that ASIC was preventing them from engaging for any reason with their clients.  Accordingly Storm proposed modifications to the undertakings demanded by ASIC.  These proposed modifications (among others) by Storm included:

1) The immediate appointment of an independent expert approved by ASIC to address the advice to be given to clients

2) Encouragement by Storm for its clients to seek an independent opinion through the FPA

3) The engagement of an independent expert to consider whether there was a reasonable basis for advice given by Storm and concentrating on negative equity clients.

4) The deletion of the gagging term ‘engage with’ in the context of ASIC’s demanded undertaking that…

    (a)   Storm will not, before [31 December 2009], engage with (except in compliance with clause 5.1(c), (d), and (e) of this Enforceable Undertaking) and/or provide financial services to any of Storm’s clients in relation to or in connection with:

      (i)            any existing margin loan; or

      (ii)          the use of debt directly or indirectly in order to acquire financial products; or

      (iii)        the management of any financial products in connection with a geared portfolio.

The Plain Truth questioned various experts in this field and all indications are that Storms proposed modifications to ASIC’s undertakings are entirely reasonable and that similar proposals have been implemented before by ASIC.

Monday 22 December @ 6.53pm

Below is ASIC response to Storm’s request to adjust some of the ASIC terms in the ASIC drafted EU.

ASIC’s subsequent reaction to Storms proposals strongly demonstrates their lack of sincerity to CBA victims.  Of particular note is dot point headed ‘para 5.1(a)’ where ASIC in no uncertain terms insists that Storm has no contact whatsoever with their distressed clients.  How ASIC can claim all along that it did not gag Storm is beyond belief.

ASIC’s continual insistence that it did not gag Storm can only be because ASIC understands clearly that its actions contributed to Storm client loses.  Accordingly ASIC is culpable along with CBA and liable to compensate those losses.  The Plain Truth cannot emphasise this point strongly enough.

As can be seen in the second half of the email ASIC is prepared to reduce the 12 month gag to a 3 month gag.  This course of action is inconsistent with ASIC’s claim that Storm is ‘offering’ to gag itself and for 12 months.  If as ASIC claims Storm offered a 12 month gag undertaking then ASIC would have grabbed it without argument.

Also note the ferocity of the threat to Storm by ASIC in the last paragraph – “Accordingly, I am now instructed that unless your client confirms, by 9.00 am tomorrow (23 December) that it will execute the EU tomorrow (amended as per the above bullet points), ASIC reserves its rights to take whatever steps it considers appropriate, viz your client’s business and/or licence, without further notice to your client.”

To be continued…

 PART III (final) will be published Saturday 19^th May 2012

Content : ASIC court documents, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley ASIC, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, ASIC & CBA compensation

Reporter: Tricia Takanawa / Jimmy Olsen

Content : ASIC & Storm, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley profile, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, ASIC & CBA compensation, Tony D’Aloisio profile

Tuesday 15^th May 2012

This article follows on from our previous story “Was Storm gagged by ASIC: A reality, not a myth” where we discussed the justification ASIC used for gagging Storm.  The article will delve deeper into ASIC actions in Dec 08 and includes various ASIC emails proving the gagging of Storm.  Due to the excessive length of the article it will be delivered in 3 parts.

PART I 

Since December 2008 ASIC has denied that it had forced any undertaking from Storm including blatant denials by the then head of ASIC Tony D’Aloisio to the PJC Inquiry.  In December 2008 in discussions with ASIC, Emmanuel & Julie Cassimatis were presented for the first time with a document, authored by ASIC, that purported to represent a ‘draft’ enforceable undertaking (EU) that Storm offered to make.  The Cassimatis’ claim that no such ‘offering’ was made by Storm and in fact they were coerced and pressured to sign the ASIC document there and then but refused to do so.  Our source within ASIC has informed The Plain Truth that the precise dates that the EU demanded by ASIC were presented to the Cassimatis’ were 16^th and 17^th Dec for Emmanuel and Julie respectively.  Section 5 of this ‘draft’ EU contained among other things a requirement that ‘Storm and its representatives not engage with and/or provide financial services to any of Storm’s clients in relation to or in connection with any geared investments (includes debt and assets) for a period of over 1 yr’.

Clearly had the Cassimatis’ formalised this undertaking by signing, it would have eventually rendered Storm insolvent given that Storm would have been prevented in doing business with most of their clients by volume of business.  We understand that although Storm had approximately 14,000 clients overall, something like 90% of Storms revenue was derived from approximately the 3,000 clients who would have been subjected to this undertaking.

Therefore if ASIC’s statement that the Cassimatis’ offered this ‘draft’ undertaking is to be believed, then firstly the Cassimatis’ would have signed it, which they did not, secondly it would have resulted in financial suicide for Storm, which the directors dutifully resisted and thirdly subsequent emails between Storm and ASIC definitively illustrate Storm’s unwillingness to agree to even a 3 month undertaking let alone a 12 month undertaking as ASIC claims was supposedly ‘offered’ by Storm.  The only conclusion that can be drawn is – ASIC wanted the undertaking and not Storm.

ASIC has claimed and continues to claim that Storm was not gagged.  ASIC points to the fact that the ‘draft’ document created by ASIC was never signed by Storm or the Cassimatis’ and accordingly – there was never an Enforceable Undertaking.  ASIC conveniently hides emails that unequivocally prove that ASIC extracted an undertaking from Storm. The Plain Truth has published these emails below.  The questions now remaining are how to explain the fact that there WAS an undertaking eventually extracted from the Cassimatis’, how this was done and what the undertaking was…

Storm did not sign the proposed Enforceable Undertaking (EU) drafted by ASIC, accordingly that undertaking had no effect. The real damage occurred to the CBA victims / Storm clients and Storm itself when ASIC was able to force a short-term undertaking from Storm to ‘not engage’ with clients along the same lines as their prepared written undertaking.  This short term undertaking was put in place by ASIC until the final terms of the full EU had been agreed to by both ASIC and Storm (in any event ultimately no agreement was reached).  The short term gagging was reluctantly agreed to by Storm in a desperate bid to allow them to obtain a sensible undertaking from ASIC which would not result in ASIC forcing Storm into administration.  Consequently a window of opportunity was created by ASIC that allowed the CBA, with this help of ASIC, to lay blame at the feet of Storm.  At the same time Storm, its advisors and servants were unable to respond to clients’ plea’s for help due to ASICs underhanded and seemingly innocuous short-term, interim gag that eventually became a permanent and fatal gag.

On the 17th Dec 08 CBA dispatched a letter to its victims (i.e. Storm clients) misleadingly advising them that Storm is “completely responsible for your financial position and any advice they might offer to you regarding that position”.  This letter from CBA was designed to arrive in their victims letterboxes during the gagging period.

Thursday 18 December 2008 @ 7.51pm

Whilst Storm was resisting the inevitable consequences that would flow from the signing of the EU as proposed, ASIC extracted an ‘interim’ undertaking which is obvious in the below email from Hugh Copley to Justin McDonald (Storms lawyer).  It was this seemingly harmless ‘interim’ undertaking, forcefully imposed by ASIC that ultimately led to the demise of Storm and the destruction of Storm clients.  It is this loss causing ‘gag’ action by ASIC which will require ASIC to compensate Storm clients for a significant proportion of their losses.

Friday 19 December 2008 @ 6.13pm

As can be seen in the following email and attachment, which speak for themselves, it is evident that ASIC is force-feeding Storm at a time when ASIC is claiming that Storm was ‘volunteering’ to gag itself.

ASIC was so confident in its arrogance that Storm would succumb to its demands for a fatal EU, that ASIC went so far as to draft on Storms behalf a letter to Storms clients and had even at this time negotiated with the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) to distribute out Storm clients to alternate advisors.

Very important note – This collusion by ASIC with the FPA coincides with CBA’s offer in its letter dated 17 Dec 08 to pay for a 1hr consultation for Storm clients with the alternate advisor that ASIC wanted.

Extract from CBA letter to Storm clients dated 17^th Dec 08

Saturday 20 December 08 @ 4.04pm 

Email from Julie Cassimatis to Storm lawyer highlighting concerns over ASIC timeframes.

Shown here is the enormous pressure ASIC applied to Storm.  There was insufficient time given by ASIC for Storm to consider a highly complex document that would result in not only the destruction of 3,000 clients but also a $500M company.

This email contains statements that clearly show:

–          ASIC demand the EU and was not ‘offered’ by Storm as ASIC is trying to portray

–          At this time the EU was still in draft phase and not yet finalised

–          ASIC successfully demanded and got an interim undertaking using the hook that this undertaking was for a short time only.

To be continued…

 PART II will be published Thursday 17^th May 2012

Content : ASIC & Storm, Storm gagging, Hugh Copley profile, ASIC Enforceable Undertaking, ASIC & CBA compensation, Tony D’Aloisio profile

Editor : Perry White

Content : Parliamentary Joint Committee, Storm Financial, Bernie Ripoll

Friday 11th May 2012

When this website was established, the angry men and women behind it were determined to get something done.  How this was to be done was encapsulated in The Plain Truths mission statement – to shed the light of truth onto the darkness of deceit for the purpose of obtaining justice. 

The objective is to be satisfied that the main issues are exposed, a complete picture of any truth emerges and a level of corrective action (justice) has been initiated. Unless justice is precipitated by action merely exposing the truth is a waste of time. Accordingly The Plain Truth will not only be reporting the truth but also actively encourage passive and legal action by people affected and anybody interested in doing the right thing.

The Plain Truth will now report on the progress of our mission whilst taking the opportunity to cover a few other matters.

The Commission

The original seven members of the Commission against Bank Atrocities have resolved and ratified through a majority vote of all commission members that the name of the Commission be changed to the Commission on Banking and Financial Services.  The new name reflects a broader investigative scope which is not simply limited to banks but includes other financial institutions such as Fund Managers and Securities Dealers.

Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry

On Wednesday 29^th February 2012 some members from the Commission met with representatives of The Plain Truth.  At that meeting it was established that the combined information held between the parties was more than sufficient to warrant a fresh inquiry into the role the Commonwealth Bank played in collapsing so many Storm client portfolios.  The Commission understands that various groups and individuals are at the early stages of independently communicating with politicians for the purpose of having a new inquiry established.  To date the four members of parliament who have been approached have all given qualified support with one exception. Two out of the four were quite enthusiastic, one (1) reserved but more positive than negative whilst the fourth member was completely negative and stated “that it (the re-opening of the inquiry) wouldn’t happen”.   Naturally the fourth member in question was none other than Bernie Ripoll (mobile phone number 0418 763 351) who has a vested interest in resisting the truth because of his involvement in the cover-up and his inept chairing of the original inquiry.  The inquiries conclusions speak for themselves with no sanctions against the CBA or the banks in general and the granting of licence for the banks to continue acting with impunity.

The Commission has evidence showing that Bernie Ripoll was obstructing the exposure of the truth in many ways including:

–          By refusing to include the CBA or any bank in the initial terms of reference of the Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia,

–          By refusing to include the CBA or any banks in the terms of reference in any of the hearings,

–          By abusing the Chairman of SICAG,

–          By directing that Emmanuel Cassimatis NOT make a written submission to the inquiry,

–          His refusal to accept documents presented to him at the hearings which proved that CBA lied.  Copies of these documents some of which were supplied by former Storm clients and some sent in anonymously to The Plain Truth by persons within both the CBA and ASIC are in the possession of the Commission.

Accordingly after 17 weeks of The Plain Truth publishing some of the evidence gathered, the next phase of endeavours is about to commence.  The task which now confronts the Commission, The Plain Truth and CBA’s victims is to act to re-establish a new PJC Inquiry.

To this end the following actions will occur:

–          The Commission and The Plain Truth will consolidate all the evidence,

–          The Commission will take over where possible and spearhead the approach to ALL members of Australia’s parliament,

–          The Commission will draft proposed terms of reference for the re-opening of the Inquiry,

–          The Plain Truth will report on the Commissions progress and publish the proposed terms of reference on The Plain Truth website and open the terms of reference for discussion and input by the Australian public and in particular CBA’s victims.

–          The Commission will prepare a document of argument and evidence to be presented to all members of parliament.

Storm Financial – Past Activities

The Plain Truth has received some emails asking why there seems to be a lack of sufficient scrutiny of Storm Financials activities leading up to Jan 2009.  The answers to these questions are simple.  The Plain Truth investigators have been given the task of determining what the state of affairs was based solely on evidence, first hand statements and facts.  Our investigators have diligently followed the direction in which the facts point.  There have been a lot of allegations levelled at Storm and its advisors and to date The Plain Truth has not been provided with any facts to back these allegations.  On the contrary where The Plain Truth has been provided with negative opinion about Storm, any facts The Plain Truth has been able to uncover have pointed in the opposite direction to the negative opinion.  The Plain Truth and the Commission strongly requests any evidence which points to wrong-doing by Storm Financial, its directors, staff and advisors be sent to The Plain Truth.   This may be sent via the ‘contact us’ tab on our website or via email to ‘[email protected]’ or to our postal address The Plain Truth, PO Box 2783, New Farm QLD 4005.

Actions required by YOU going forward…

As we have already pointed out to a number of people, the truth alone will not result in justice and the appropriate level of compensation for the wrong you have been caused.  On the other hand action alone unsupported by truth is just as futile.  Both the TRUTH and ACTION is required to achieve a just outcome.  It is time for the party to begin in earnest and those who have the energy and the integrity must act.  It was very clearly people power that initiated the original Inquiry.  Unfortunately at that time the facts were still unavailable allowing people such as Carey Ramm, Bernie Ripoll, Ralph Norris, Ian Narev and many other vested interests to hijack the Inquiry and play the highly charged emotions of a destroyed and distraught group of people like a fine violin.

Now in a much cooler environment and armed with the facts a rejuvenated inquiry, which is the very thing the CBA fears most, would blow the shams of the last 3 years wide open.  The facts are gathered, the time is ripe, the enemy is complacent making it the time to strike.  The three important steps now required are:

1)      For YOU to get the truth out to as many people as possible

2)      For YOU to lobby the politicians once armed with the truth (print the evidence from the website)

3)      For YOU together with others and armed with the truth to conduct meetings from Cairns to Melbourne

We of the Commission are victims along with everyone, have lost our wealth are angry, frustrated and exhausted.  We understand very well and clearly the ease with which it is possible to sit, do nothing and let others carry the load.  At the same time we also understand that many have hitched their wagon to various actions and class actions in the hope of getting a just and fair settlement.  Like it or not the Commissions believes that this can NEVER happen.  Accordingly if there is not sufficient action by YOU then regardless of the amount of truth available, outcomes will remain unsatisfactory.  You know what is required…A LAWFUL UPRISING!  Do not expect instant results but take heart by looking at the number of facts that have been uncovered in just 17 weeks.  Also take heart from the knowledge that outcomes will be satisfactorily achieved is sufficient action is taken.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : Parliamentary Joint Committee, Storm Financial, Bernie Ripoll

Reporter : Ted Baxter

Content : CBA annual profits, PJC on Corporations & Finance, cause of GFC, Managed Fund MER’s

Tuesday 8^th May 2012

Congratulations to Bernie Ripoll whose greatest claim to fame as the chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporation and Financial Services is to licence banks with the unfettered right to charge what they want, when they want, to whom they want.  If sex, drugs and rock’n’roll were the temptations in the nightclubs of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s then greed, double greed and greed¹⁰ are the demons of today with the bank boardrooms being the nightclubs.

Researching this stuff and reporting on it can be so soul destroying if one allows it to be.  Looking at the cold hard facts, the actions of various organisations and the consequences of these actions on people with hearts and souls is a very sobering experience.  For the purposes of this report the facts are as follows:

–          A global financial crisis swept the world in late 2008.

–          The nature of the crisis led to the greatest destruction of capital and liquidity in human history.  The consequence of this destruction of liquidity was the triggering of a deleveraging event within the capital markets of seismic proportions.

–          The extent of the loss of liquidity resulted in banks worldwide falling into insolvency like dominos.  The consequences of this banking insolvency crisis meant that the global economy was in serious meltdown and had crossed the point of no return.  This in turn meant the inevitable breakdown of society as we know into anarchy.

–          The only and final option available to societies was for sovereign intervention to occur in order to prop up the system by saving the banks.

–          Now here is the galling part. THE CAUSE OF THE GFC WAS THE GREED DRVEN ACTIVITIES OF THE BANKS THEMSELVES WHICH THEN REQUIRED ‘DEFIBRILLATION’.

–          The activities required to restart the heart of the banking system, which caused the GFC and the pain emanating from it, involved such massive injections of capital that in many cases required the undisguised, raw printing of new money which has been cutely and Orwellianly described as ‘Quantitative Easing’ (just more taurus excretes).

–          Q: Who pays for all of this?  A: We all do.  The taxpaying plebs at the end of the food chain.

–          Q: How do we pay?

• Stage 1 – We pay via the transfer of our wealth back into the banking system to help save them – i.e. our assets were force sold out from under us to rebuild the banks stockpiles of cash which they had burnt up in sub-prime assets.
• Stage 2 – Insult is then added to our injury by demanding of us as taxpayers to fund massive and incredible bailouts in addition to having involuntarily contributed most of our existing wealth when the bank stole our assets – i.e. governments are running deficit budgets which will have to be funded from direct and indirect taxes already impacting on our lifestyle – e.g. increases fuel costs, property rates, statutory fees and charges, electricity, transport, medical, blah blah blah.
• Stage 3 – Because of the nature of Quantitative Easing the only outcome from this process is an increase in the cost of living (extra inflation) because printing new money does not actually increase real wealth.

Question: Who are the beneficiaries from all of this?

Answer : Not you, me or your neighbour.  Not even the government.  The only possible beneficiaries are the banks.  The following table highlights the annual statutory NPAT (Net profit after tax) of the Commonwealth Bank from 2004 to 2011 inclusive along with the latest half year profit reported as at 31 Dec 2011.

These results carry their own message.  The world economies have come apart and are still disintegrating in much of the world whilst an institution like the Commonwealth Bank goes from strength to strength to strength.  Please note that the latest half yearly results are greater than the entire full year results of 2004 and almost to the level of the full year results for 2005 and 2006.

The public is poorer, the government budget has gone from surplus to deficit yet the CBA robber barons along with the other banks are getting fatter and meaner.  As is the custom with facts they speak for themselves however none are so blind as those who do not want to see.

Recently a Stormie forwarded to The Plain Truth a communication received from the National Bank.  This communication very clearly reveals one of the outcomes from the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into Financial Products and Services. Following is a copy of this communication and a quick look over it highlights three things:

1)      The NAB / MLC is further moving towards self service aided by the incredible power of the internet. By having accounts online as you can see some of the services such as updating details, making contributions, accessing reports and printing one’s own statements (on your own paper and with your own ink) will cut the banks expenses significantly. This also eliminates postage and reduces staffing requirements.

2)      Furthermore by having individuals process their own transactions the bank is able to transfer away from itself all liability with respect to these transactions.

3)      At the same time that the bank is reducing its costs it has the audacity to demand and get higher annual ongoing fees.  Please note that these higher annual ongoing fees which include advisor trail commissions are being increased in an environment where advisor trailing commissions may disappear (FOFA reform) possibly leaving the poor bank with extra profit that they are just going to have to live with.  Such is life.

Demonstrably all that the Parliamentary Inquiry has managed to achieve is to perpetuate the impunity with which the banks / Commonwealth Bank can conduct themselves.  As we all know lessons in life come with a price and of course we Stormies have been subjected to many lessons at a heavy price.  Unfortunately some of us are still to understand the lesson even though our hurt is profound.  The banks on the other hand as you can see from their profit increases have been allowed by the legislators to pass on all of the hurt to the rest of us and feel none of it themselves in spite of the fact that they are the root cause of the hurt.  These smiling bandits are laughing all the way to the bank.

   Today’s story is further evidence that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services really had no interest in pursuing any bank let alone the Commonwealth Bank. Further evidence of this mindset can be seen in the opening gambit of the inquiry where the Commonwealth Bank was completely left out of the PJC Terms of Reference. This mindset was also reflected in the final 11 recommendations from Bernie Ripoll, not one of which included that accountability be demanded of the CBA or any other bank.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : CBA annual profits, PJC on Corporations & Finance, cause of GFC, Managed Fund MER’s