Maurice Blackburn acted for dozens of investors affected by the scandal and gave evidence as to the “flawed” compensation regime agreed between ASIC and Commonwealth FP for affected clients during the senate inquiry.
Speaking to InvestorDaily, Maurice Blackburn principal John Berill said this system means that many victims may not have been correctly compensated during the compensation process.
“The whole review process for compensation was flawed in my view and what the outcome was that I still think a lot of people have not been fully compensated for their losses,” Mr Berill said.
“The senate committee recommendations acknowledge that or they say that they’re at least suspicious of it.”
“The problem is what their recommendation is: that this should be dealt with by the Royal Commission.”
While Mr Berill believes the senate inquiry is a good outcome for the financial services system, he believes that compensation needs to “start now” for affected clients of Commonwealth FP.
“I think it needs to be fixed and it also needs to be done quickly and I think the royal commission is just too far off,” Mr Berill said.
“These are people who have saved for their retirement, built up their retirement to have lost half of it or more, so they simply don’t have enough money to live off.
“For them, the sooner this thing gets resolved the better… and royal commissions just don’t do things that quickly.”
