Macquarie Bank

CHARGE SHEET 1. The Macquarie Bank failed to make margin loan calls expressed in writing directly to its Storm customers.

2. The Macquarie Bank breached its contractual obligations to such customers under the margin loan contracts.

3. The Macquarie Bank and Storm entered into covert agreements that were detrimental to their Storm customers.

4. The schemes operated by Storm and the Macquarie Bank led to blatant over-leveraging of Storm customers' assets.

5.  The Macquarie Bank failed to apply prudent banking principles when authorising margin loans to its Storm customers.

6.  The Macquarie Bank did not ascertain the true capacity of its Storm customers' to repay these loans.

7.  The Macquarie Bank unlawfully assigned its margin loan obligations in respect of its Storm customers' to Storm.

8.  The Macquarie Bank allowed Storm to provide vital information in relation to margin loans that was never verified. 

9.   The Macquarie Bank failed to act expediously when its Storm customers’ investments portfolios were at risk.

10. Storm and Macquarie pooled business thereby constituting an 'unregistered managed investment scheme'.

By acting in this way, the Macquarie Bank ignored its duty of care, was imprudent when authorising margin loans, breached its customers’ contractual rights, failed in its contractual obligations, and violated its own banking code of conduct.

 When so doing, it operated contrary to the statutory Acts that are binding on institutions that offer financial services. These Acts include: The ASIC Act, the Trade Practices Act, and the Fair Trading Act. Whether they have breached the Corporations Act and other Acts will be for ASIC to ascertain.

Suffice to say that this bank along with the CBA and the Bank of Queensland formed an alliance with Storm Financial for monetary gain. Their customers interests along with their assets were sacrificed because this alliance bred loose control systems, lack of proper verification, assignment of tasks and responsibilities that made the process cumbersome and slow, and promoted abuse by all concerned. There was a lack of communication, and a confusion with regard to responsibility that, in adverse times, such as occurred in late 2008, could only end one way.