Reporter : Ted Baxter

Content : Hugh Copley ASIC, Ritesh Patel ASIC, Storm compensation, Storm emails, ASIC compensation.

Tuesday 26^th June 2012

In late 2008 the CBA was alerted by Storm Financial Ltd that the CBA’s data to Storm clients was out of date and grossly inaccurate.  This meant that Storm advisors and their clients were unknowingly transacting ‘blindly’ because of this wrong data.  In fact there was insufficient information to protect investment portfolios in a rapidly declining equities market triggered by the GFC.  At the same time banks around the world, including Australian banks, had massive concerns about solvency.  These dual issues which confronted the CBA set the scene for the wanton and deliberate massacre of Storm and its clients by the CBA in order to protect itself.  

From this point on, for whatever reason, ASIC acted in such a way that the inevitable consequences of ASIC’s actions was the collapse of Storm and its clients.  ASIC acted either with deliberation or out of ignorance without checking whether CBA’s story to them was fact or fiction. ASIC was drawn into the affair, made a wrong judgement and should now be held accountable for the consequences of its actions at that time and since.  Whilst ASIC is attempting to deflect its own culpability by attacking the unregistered investment scheme ‘straw man’, reality and natural justice demands that ASIC compensate Storm clients for its own gross negligence.

 

The Plain Truth has documents, some of which have been provided by a source in ASIC, confirming that ASIC’s and Hugh Copley’s reactions against Storm were of the knee-jerk kind.  Discussions held with various solicitors confirmed that ASIC’s usual approach, following extensive investigations resulting in similar Enforceable Undertaking situations, is fairly regimented with limited flexibility available to the accused when it comes to the Enforceable Undertaking.  The documents held in The Plain Truths possession highlight:

–      That almost NO proper investigation was conducted prior to ASIC’s attempt at forcing an undertaking.

–      That the sole source of information that ASIC acted upon at the time was the CBA.

–      That a reading of the EU document confirms that ASIC’s aim was to prevent Storm from communicating with it existing and potential clients consequently blocking Storm clients from being able to receive advice from Storm, leaving the CBA as the only source of accessible information (which was essentially…’pay up or else’).

–      That ASIC was disinterested in the type of business structure that Storm had.  This has been recently confirmed in a transcript of a phone call with Ritesh Patel of ASIC.

Ritesh confirmed during a telephone conversation in mid-April 2012 that when the GFC first happened, the usual process in litigation from ASIC is to close things down to stop people getting hurt further.  While ASIC did this at the time, they didn’t realise that by preventing people from talking to their advisers they were actually hurting them more.   Ritesh admitted that was a huge mistake.

–      ASIC’s disinterest in the consequences to Storm clients of placing a gag on Storm…for any duration.

–      ASIC flip-flopped by contradicting itself when demanding the EU from Storm.

ASIC claimed that a 12 month gag / EU would not materially impact Storm

During the negotiations between ASIC and Storm whereby ASIC was demanding an Enforceable Undertaking be signed, ASIC’s disinterest of the effect of its actions became apparent.  From the outset ASIC demanded a ‘gag’ for a period of 12 months.  During this period Storm and its servants would not be allowed to engage, in any way, with any of its existing existing geared or any new or potential gearing clients (effectively ANY potential clients).

Storm advised ASIC through its solicitors on 22 Dec 08 @ 3:08pm that “Our clients [Storm] have considered the terms of the enforceable undertaking (“EU”). The difficulty with the proposal is that the current independent financial advice that they have received is that the EU, in those terms, will push the organisation into voluntary administration. That means 14,000 clients will be without access to advice and 126 jobs will be lost. That cannot be the object of ASIC’s regulatory role.” 

Hugh Copley and ASIC’s flip-flop occurred when they claimed in a response email to Storms solicitor dated 22 Dec 08 @ 4:22pm that, “ASIC does not accept that the EU will have the impact upon your [Storms] client’s business that your email suggests. The impact of the EU will preclude your client from dealing with 3,000 of its 14,000 clients,…”.

 Whilst alleging above that ASIC did not accept Storms dire analysis of ASIC’s demand on its business, ASIC subsequently nonsensically admitted in the same email dated 22 Dec 08 @ 4:22pm that, “…those [3,000] clients [are] responsible for the mainstay of your client’s income.”.

Finally, in the same email, ASIC acknowledged that the EU would impact Storm business and consequently Storm’s clients, “However, ASIC appreciates that the EU will have an impact upon your client’s income stream”.

 That ASIC was alerted in 2008 to the consequences of their proposed EU was further confirmed in an email from Storm Financials solicitor to Storm dated 20 Dec 08 @ 4:20pm where the solicitor believed that ASIC would understand the impact of placing a gag on Storm would have on them, “ASIC would have to be conscious of the devastating financial effect of the EU on the business [Storms clients] and we may be able to persuade them of an alternative, although that will be difficult.”

The only motivation that The Plain Truth has been able to uncover for ASIC’s actions is the dialogue that ASIC had with the CBA in late 2008 as The Plain Truth exposed in its article “Was Storm Gagged, A Reality, not a myth”.

Clearly ASIC did not know what it was doing.  Hugh Copley’s and ASIC’s sole focus at that stage was to prevent Storm from engaging with its clients and “closing things down”. This again has been recently confirmed in a transcript of a phone call with Ritesh Patel from ASIC.

Ritesh confirmed during a telephone conversation in mid-April that when the GFC first happened, the usual process in litigation from ASIC is to close things down to stop people getting hurt further.  While ASIC did this at the time, they didn’t realise that by preventing people from talking to their advisers they were actually hurting them more. Ritesh admitted that was a huge mistake.

The Plain Truth repeats… Whilst ASIC is attempting to deflect its own culpability by attacking the unregistered investment scheme ‘straw man’, reality and natural justice demands that ASIC compensate Storm clients for its own gross negligence.  Such compensation will remain unlikely until victims demand straight and on topic answers from ASIC.  To date ASIC has used weasel words to avoid direct answers.

ASIC contact details:

Greg Medcraft [email protected]

Hugh Copley 0434 565 199, 07 38674892  [email protected]

Ritesh Patel 07 3867 4718 [email protected]

 

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

 

Content : Hugh Copley ASIC, Ritesh Patel ASIC, Storm compensation, Storm emails, ASIC compensation.

Editor : Perry White

Content : Divide and Conquer, post-GFC inquiry, banks sub-prime

Tuesday 19^th June 2012

A very experienced and senior police detective friend of mine once attempted to describe the nature of EVIL to me.  It is not until very recently that I have come to appreciate the meaning of his words.  My friend described a scenario involving possible serious danger and offered two choices of escape:

‘Imagine you find yourself in the middle of a dark and deserted alley late at night with the only exit being either ends of the alley.  At one end stands a rough looking bikie type.  He is dishevelled with teeth missing, tattoos on his arms and chains hanging from his belt.  At the other end of the alley stands a well groomed business man type in a suit.’

The question my detective friend posed was in the instant requiring a decision, which way should one move?  Instinctively I answered – well, towards the more trustworthy looking man in the suit.  His answer to me came as a complete surprise.  He suggested that from his experience and profiles he has studied that if danger existed it would more likely come from the man in the suit than the bikie type.  Accordingly one would need to overcome their natural instincts fuelled by years of stereotyping.  He pointed out that many of the worst crimes in society have been perpetrated by individuals armed with the cloak of respectability and gave numerous examples.

What do all these people have in common…?

a)      They all look trustworthy

b)      Their natures are indistinguishable in a crowd

c)      They personalities are / were dominant and controlling

d)      They lack the empathy required to fully comprehend the consequences of their actions

e)      Each displayed psychopathic traits

f)       Each was responsible for inflicting immeasurable suffering on others

From left to right they are:- Ted Bundy (serial killer), Ralph Norris (mass liquidator), David Berkowitz – Son of Sam (serial killer), Albert DeSalvo – Boston Strangler (serial killer), Bernie Madoff (mass thief and swindler).

The key to the crimes perpetrated by these individuals is their ability to disguise themselves with the cloak of respectability.  This allowed them to gain the trust of individuals and use this trust to further their own ends at the expense of those individuals.

In the case of the banks worldwide they created sub-prime toxic products and were able to distribute these products because the products were perceived to come from a trusted source.  The nature and level toxicity of these sub-prime products was such that they resulted in a global financial crisis the likes of which the world had never seen before.

For the purpose of absolute and utter clarity it was the banks as a whole that were responsible for the global financial crisis (GFC).  This assertion is incontestable and is accepted by the rational world at large.

What is so shocking is the audacity with which the banks advantage themselves from the crisis they caused (note as an example the record profits of the CBA) and then pretend that they are the only solution to the problem.  The technique they use has been espoused in previous articles and includes the mighty use of their financial clout and their planting of mis-information such that they are able to divide and conquer those who are awake up to them.  The banks do this by fabricating stories that enable them wrongly point the finger at others.  This finger pointing causes divisions within communities which takes the spotlight away from those who are the REAL bad guys (the banks) and focuses the heat on others.

These techniques the banks use at a local level as well as an international level.  The example locally is the CBA pointing the finger at Storm ensuring that blame goes Storms way and then moving in to capture the high moral ground with a so-called resolution scheme that offers approximately $0.20 in the $1 for the losses they themselves caused.  Furthermore in order for their victims to receive the paltry handout they must sign an agreement which accuses parties other than the bank of wrongdoing and which further insists that the victims must under no circumstances make any adverse comment whatsoever about the bank under pain having to refund even that $0.20.

At an international level exactly the same technique gets used with the most recent example being Greece (not to mention Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Iceland etc).  In the case of Greece the GFC precipitated by the banks has led to a sovereign state being bankrupted with the international banking system setting up a ‘Greek resolution scheme’ (bailout) and having the Greek people forgetting that the banks are at fault by pointing the finger at the politicians and the government, creating dissention and taking the focus away from those banks who caused the GFC in the first place.

The battle between good and evil continues with evil making huge inroads.  This success by the banks has happened mainly because quite simply it has been allowed to happen.  Just ponder the facts that the Italian PM was sacked without an election and replaced by a banker, the previous Greek PM was sacked and replaced by a banker without an election, and for heaven’s sake a former banker responsible for the creation of subprime instruments has been appointed as the head of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Quite clearly the banks divide and conquer strategy has so far worked.  The bank instigated fighting between the banks victims with other of the banks victims, the banks victims with their own lawyers, the lawyers with other lawyers has all allowed the focus to come off the real bad guys are…the banks.

It is important to remember – “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing”.  All that is happening now is that good men are doing nothing effective other than fighting among themselves.  The Plain Truth is a forum which has had some success at re-focusing the fight back where it belongs against the banks.  We ask you, the readers and victims, that you show your support and help yourselves and others by looking at the facts and ONLY the facts.

The Editor

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : Divide and Conquer, post-GFC inquiry, banks sub-prime

Reporter : Jimmy Olsen

Content : CGI margin loans, Storm clients, CBA errors, ASIC compensation

Friday 8^th June 2012

This article follows on from our previous article (www.commonwealthbankdeception/?p=368) outlining the relationship between the CBA and Storm.   Storm has always claimed that they had an understanding from the Commonwealth Bank that should the CBA / CGI make errors that the bank would acknowledge these errors and fix them with the help of Storm.

The Plain Truth has been provided with the following emails from a source within the office of CBA’s receivers.  Clearly the emails require little explanation.   They can conclusively confirm that in the early 2000’s CBA had indeed made errors relating to borrower unit holdings, admitted these errors and cooperated in fixing the problem which they caused.

You will note that the emails are dated as late as 2004.

The Plain Truth has sighted many such errors and the corrective action which Storm took to help the CBA fix their mistakes.

Wind the clock forward to 2008.  From the evidence gathered The Plain Truth can confidently state that every single Storm client with a Colonial Margin Loan had CBA errors, the majority of which proved to be fatal to these same clients.

It is beyond our comprehension to understand why the CBA felt the need to deny the errors, blame Storm and their own clients, create the need to cover up their errors and then pretend that they would fix everything whilst painting themselves as martyrs.

We apologise in advance for our crudity, but….

…MR RALPH NORRIS, MR IAN NAREV and your cohorts, you lie, you lie, you lie.  As for your famous mia culpa Mr Norris of ‘where we have done wrong, we will put right’, we suggest that you insert that where the sun doesn’t shine.

 

The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : CGI margin loans, Storm clients, CBA errors, ASIC compensation

Reporter : Jimmy Olsen

Content : CGI margin loans, Storm clients, Commonwealth Bank errors, ASIC compensation

Tuesday 5th June 2012

We have already seen how Storm had developed a re-participation strategy to cope with highly volatile and deeply negative markets.  Similarly Storm entered into a pact with the Commonwealth Bank in the early 2000’s to work in close cooperation with them in the event that serious errors occurred.  This informal cooperation which we demonstrate in this article culminated in an attempt to formalise this cooperation in an agreement ratified 18^th May 2007.  We now know that the Commonwealth Bank sidestepped this agreement in 2008 and in doing so contributed to the destruction of Storm and its clients.

Between 2001-03 it was discovered CBA had error’s in its then margin lending system which, among other things, often under-allocated or over-allocated units to individual accounts.  The effect of an over-allocation was to delay margin calls past the point where the margin call should have occurred, causing some clients to go into negative equity.  Thanks to the ever increasing supply of statements that The Plain Truth has received it has been identified that one of the main reasons for the over-allocation of units was because when redemptions occurred the CBA system failed to remove those redeemed units.  This overstated a client security position which gave the appearance that the account was in a stronger position than it actually was.

In addition to the failure to record redemptions the CBA also simply got its record keeping wrong because at that time the unit updating system was manual and not timely.  Hence human error played a large part.  Some of these additional types of errors involved recording an individual security / fund as collateral on another borrowers CGI margin loan and not on the correct loan OR alternatively recording the same collateral on two different borrowers loans.  Accordingly this one error affected two borrower accounts simultaneously by overstating the units on one and understating the units on the other or alternatively correctly recorded the collateral on one account and overstated it on the other.

Given the large amount of material The Plain Truth has been provided with by Storm clients we have the luxury of selecting for an illustration which shows the client was not only the victim of one CBA mistake but subjected to two unrelated mistakes…AT THE SAME TIME.

As you can see in the following illustrations the errors by the CBA are by no means trivial.  Clearly these errors carry severe consequences should they not be acknowledged.  However as you will see when reading on these CBA errors were acknowledged and accommodated by the CBA in 2002.  Regrettably, similar errors in 2008 were not acknowledged with disastrous consequences.  In the case of ‘client A’ loan 1, of the 2 loans that this client had simultaneously, you can see MLC units are overstated at 138,318 units when in fact the true balance of the MLC units at the time was 76,294.  The consequence of this error was that the clients LVR was not a more moderate 69.71% as stated by Colonial Geared investments but rather a riskier 81%.  This mis-information in the clients hands had the effect of making ALL activity in the portfolio which occurred whilst these mistakes prevailed dangerous and potentially fatal.

In addition to the error mentioned above ‘client A’ had one (1) ozdaq Technology fund whose 413,000 odd units (incidentally CBA also listed different unit balances for the same fund) were used as collateral for both of their Colonial Margin Loans (loans 1 and 2).

The consequence of the ‘doubling-up’ of client security was to effectively show the client LVR at 76.44% when in fact the client was severely in negative equity at 181%.  Disaster was averted because CBA admitted its mistake which it should also have done in 2008 but did not.

Note the managers of CBA at that time elected to acknowledge the CBA mistakes and did not destroy this or any clients to cover their position.  Rather, CBA accepted that the client was in this negative position due to their errors and accordingly co-operated whilst the market corrected the situation (regardless of timeframe).  This is clearly evident when viewing the same client position nearly 2 years later.  Over this time the market had improved by 25%.  CBA’s cooperation and tolerance of the situation is evident in the clients CGI statement below dated 30 June 2004.  Not only were the clients still in margin call but they were in fact still in negative equity with a LVR of 100.90%.

 

 There were many such negative equity cases which were a direct result of defects in the CBA system.  However the management within CBA at the time namely Paul Johnston and Mark Corradi agreed that the fault lay with CBA. Following discussions with Emmanuel Cassimatis, it was further agreed between CBA and Storm that both advisor and bank work together to rectify the clients position.  Accordingly all clients continued to get notices that they were in margin call, but no client was sold out. To their credit both Paul Johnston and Mark Corradi acted correctly and with integrity thus maintaining the good name of CBA.

Subsequent to this time it was business as usual and CBA went about further automating their system.

Following the CBA errors discovered in the early 2000’s Mr Cassimatis attempted to ensure that should such a set of circumstances happen again then the CBA would be obliged by agreement to work together with Storm in order to correct client positions.  To not have such an agreement would continue to rely on the discretion of whoever was the margin lending manager at the time.  At the same time this agreement was intended to formalise a number of elements of Storms re-participation strategy.

To this end a written arrangement between Colonial Geared Investments (CGI) and Storm was struck on the 18 May 2007.  This arrangement will be the subject of a fuller analysis in future articles.

This discussion of the historical nature of the Storm / CBA relationship is relevant in understanding Storms expectations and mindset in 2008 and also in understanding how destructive the ASIC gagging of Storm in 2008 was.

 The Plain Truth,

PO Box 2783

New Farm  QLD  4005

Content : CGI margin loans, Storm clients, Commonwealth Bank errors, ASIC compensation

Reporter : Ron Burgandy

Content : Storm clients, Commonwealth Bank cover up, ASIC compensation model, Ritesh Patel ASIC, Hugh Copley email, Tony D’Aloisio Oakridge Wines

Friday 1^st June 2012

In order to pave the way for Storm client compensation, The Plain Truth yesterday sent the below email to various staff and servants of ASIC outlining their role they played in the collapse of Storm and calling for an internal investigation.

 

Email sent Thursday 31^st May 2012

Subject: ASIC evidence relating to CBA / Storm

Dear xxx,

The Plain Truth has been investigating the CBA attack on Storm and the consequences of that attack.  The purpose of this email is to alert you to ASIC’s involvement in this matter.  At this time we are not absolutely certain whether ASIC was initially ‘duped’ by the CBA into the development of its ultimately unprovable theory OR whether ASIC was a knowing party to a conspiracy to protect the Commonwealth Bank and blame Storm Financial.

Our investigators are working on a theory that ASIC was initially duped and that the existence of an early conspiracy between ASIC and the CBA is drawing rather a long bow.  However the information we have in our possession leaves us with no doubt that ASIC played a large part in attempting to cover up its own initial mistakes and elected to play the dark game of duplicity.

Although we have had the well intentioned assistance from a single individual currently within ASIC, the information provided has been scant and unable to be corroborated.

Our sole aim is to uncover the truth for the purpose of assisting victims of the CBA and as it turns out victims of ASIC also.  We hope to achieve two things in alerting you to information through the following links http://www.commonwealthbankdeception.com/?p=57 (Was Storm gagged by ASIC: A reality, not a myth) and http://www.commonwealthbankdeception.com/?p=247 (Pt I – ASIC liable for ‘gagging’ compensation)

1)      That you may have the integrity to look past the glib facade that your organisation is espousing and choose to do something about it.  We are actually not silly enough to believe that you will stand up for what is right because there will be a price you will pay for going against your own…even though you may be right.

2)      More importantly we wish to bring the relevant information through the links to ASIC’s attention through a number of people to deny ASIC to ability to claim, “We didn’t investigate because we didn’t know”.  Accordingly we ask that you commence an internal investigation (by yourself if you have to) to determine the truth of the matter and use this truth to arrange compensation for those people disadvantaged by ASIC exceeding their authority.

Regards,

Ron Burgandy – Senior Investigator

The Plain Truth

 

This communication was sent to the following ASIC representatives:-

Adrian Brown – [email protected],

Amanda Dixon – [email protected],

Anne Gubbins 07 3867 4871 – [email protected],

ASIC feedback – [email protected],

Belinda Gibson – [email protected],

Brett Bassett – [email protected],

Bruce Dodd – [email protected],

Carlos Iglesias – [email protected],

Casandra Francas 02 8202 8406 – [email protected],

Chris Anderson 02 9911 2337 – [email protected],

Chris Savundra – [email protected],

David McGuinness – [email protected],

Douglas Niven 02 9911 2079, 0411 549 278 – [email protected],

Duncan Poulson – [email protected],

Emily Ingleton – [email protected],

George Stogdale – [email protected],

Gerard Fitzpatrick – [email protected],

Greg Kirk – [email protected],

Greg Medcraft – [email protected],

Greg Tanzer – [email protected],

Greg Yanco – [email protected],

Hugh Copley 0434 565 199, 07 38674892 – [email protected],

Irma Dulnuan 07 38674851 – [email protected],

Jane Eccleston – [email protected],

John Price – [email protected],

John Wallace – [email protected],

Julie Read – [email protected],

Kaan Finney 07 3867 4793 – [email protected],

Mark Bielecki – [email protected],

Mary Chan 02 9911 2189 – [email protected],

Matthew Abbott – [email protected],

Mel Radulovic 07 3867 4862 – [email protected],

Michael Kingston – [email protected],

Michael Ryan 07 3867 4709, 0411 549 043 – [email protected],

Nayanisha Samarakoon – [email protected],

Oliver Harvey – [email protected],

Peter Kell – [email protected],

Ritesh Patel 07 3867 4718 – [email protected],

Robert Drake – [email protected],

Rosanne Bell – [email protected],

Storm @ ASIC 1300 300 630 – [email protected],

Tim Mullaly – [email protected],

Warren Duffy – [email protected]

 

Content : Storm clients, Commonwealth Bank cover up, ASIC compensation model, Ritesh Patel ASIC, Hugh Copley email, Tony D’Aloisio Oakridge Wines