Nationals senator John Williams has grilled Tony D'Aloisio over the status of the corporate regulator's Storm Financial investigation, prompting the ASIC chairman to admit the investigation has been completed.
Williams used the Senate Economics Legislation Committee Estimates on 21 October to quiz D'Aloisio over ASIC's investigation into Storm after not being satisfied by the regulator's announcement on 15 October.
When asked whether the regulator had completed its investigation into the collapsed advice group, D'Aloisio said it had.
"Yes is the answer - not in the sense of being able to launch proceedings; that is subject to further consideration by the commission. But, certainly in terms of the material facts and what occurred and so on, yes we have," he said.
Williams pushed D'Aloisio on the subject of legal proceedings, querying D'Aloisio's views of banking groups, such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), pushing for out-of-court settlements.
"We ourselves believe that confidential commercial resolution of this matter remains in the interests of the investors and those involved, not because we are against taking legal proceedings - clearly we will if the commission so decides - but simply given the time that is required to do that, given the position of the investors, we do believe that a commercial resolution is the better outcome here," he said.
"Well, I think we are bona fide - we have said to the parties we are bona fide in seeking to pursue commercial resolutions and are not using the legal process in any sort of aggressive way or anything of that nature; we are simply saying: 'Let's see if we can get this resolved commercially; if we can't - that happens - we'll then look at the legal option.' We are not suggesting that we will not pursue the legal option if we need to."
When questioned over whether ASIC's investigation had revealed any grounds to pursue legal avenues, he said the regulator was looking at a range of potential claims.
"Any litigation, as you know, is fraught with issues. You can never be certain, but certainly ASIC will launch those proceedings if it so decides, with the intention of seeing them through and recovering money for the investors," he said.
Meanwhile, two litigators acting on behalf of Storm clients are at loggerheads after a bitter battle of words has erupted.
Slater & Gordon and Levitt Robinson Lawyers have been exchanging words over the nature of Slater & Gordon's resolution scheme.
In a letter to clients, Slater & Gordon warned clients of Levitt Robinson Lawyers' apparent informal version of a Storm resolution scheme.
"Mr Levitt has spent a lot of time and money travelling around the country, addressing meetings, criticising Slater & Gordon, banks and regulators...and asking clients to contribute funds to support his client action proceedings," the letter said.
"We understand that Levitt has previously made statements that the bank agreed to cooperate with him to conduct test cases, but that he didn't take up that opportunity. Under the informal resolution scheme arrangement he has now negotiated, there has been no mention about conducting any test cases."
In rebuttal to Slater & Gordon's comments, Levitt Robinson principal solicitor Stewart Levitt said: "Slater & Gordon have sought to characterise Levitt Robinson's return to negotiations with [CBA] as being a 'significant retreat' by us.
"How is it a retreat when it was CBA who refused to negotiate with us, not us with them, having accused me of acting in 'bad faith', by publicly criticising the scheme and allegedly breaching my duty of confidentiality?"
