Time for Storm founders to take responsibility
The founders of Storm Financial must take responsibility for the collapse of the firm and its effect on thousands of clients, according to Damian Scattini from Slater & Gordon.
His comments follow the finalisation of more than 900 claims lodged with law firm Slater & Gordon by clients affected by the Storm Financial collapse, 12 months since the commencement of the Storm-Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) resolution scheme.
“We also look forward to [the Australian Securities and Investments Commission] taking action against the founders of Storm Financial who must take responsibility for this disaster,” Scattini said.
“While these settlements will never give everyone back exactly what they lost it allows them to move on and to start rebuilding their lives,” he added.
There are still more than 200 remaining claims, which Slater & Gordon expect to be finalised by the end of this year.
Scattini said while many CBA clients had received compensation, there were still thousands, including clients from other banks, particularly from the Bank of Queensland, who were struggling.
Recent settlements bring the total number of individual investors who have now received compensation from CBA to more than 1500.
Slater & Gordon understands that no former Storm/CBA clients have received any compensation outside the Storm/CBA resolution scheme, which was negotiated by the law firm last year.
The majority of the processed claims came from Queensland.
Recommended for you
BT is to launch a new low-cost “Focus” investment menu for its Panorama platform this October, in partnership with Vanguard, seeking to compete with industry superannuation funds.
Net gains of financial advisers have already doubled since the start of FY25, according to this week’s Padua Wealth Data, with momentum gathering pace far faster than the previous financial year.
National advice firm MiQ Private Wealth has appointed a new chief executive to lead the business through a “transformative era” after penning a partnership deal with AZ NGA earlier this month.
WT Financial’s managing director, Keith Cullen, believes the firm’s Hubco model with Merchant Wealth Partners will be a “repeatable growth model” for the business as it scales its adviser numbers.