Client Affairs
Australian Bank Names More Luminaries To Tackle Poor Advice Affair

Commonwealth Bank, which has been undertaking a sweeping review of its business in the wake of a poor financial advice saga in Australia, has made further senior appointments to drive the process.
Commonwealth
Bank, which has been undertaking a sweeping review of its
business in the wake of a poor financial advice saga in
Australia, has made further senior appointments to drive the
process. (To see a previous story on the issue, click here.)
Two new members of the Independent Review Panel will join the
chairman, retired Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Hon
Ian Callinan. The two new panel members are retired Justice
of the Queensland Court of Appeal, Geoffrey Davies, as deputy
chairman; and retired Justice of the Federal Court and the
Victorian Court of Appeal, Julie Dodds-Streeton, as Panellist,
the bank said in a statement at the weekend.
Davies is a former judge of the Queensland Court of Appeal. He
was chairperson of the Litigation Reform Commission, served as
commissioner of the Queensland Public Hospitals Commission of
Inquiry and was a member of the Queensland Health Reform advisory
panel. Before his appointment to the Court, Mr Davies was a
leading Senior Counsel and Solicitor-General for the State of
Queensland.
Ms Dodds-Streeton served as a trial judge and Justice of Appeal
of the Supreme Court of Victoria and subsequently as a Judge of
the Federal Court until her retirement in April this year. In
addition to distinguished service on the bench, she served more
than 15 years on the Law Council’s Insolvency & Reconstruction
Law Committee.
Fiona Guthrie has been appointed as a consultant expert advisor
to the Independent Review Panel. Guthrie has had an extensive
career as an advocate for consumers of financial services.
Currently she is the executive director of Financial Counselling
Australia and a member of the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission’s Consumer Consultative Committee.
“We have worked closely with the Independent Review Panel
Chairman, the Hon Ian Callinan AC, to identify high calibre Panel
members. We are very pleased that Mr Davies and Ms Dodds-Streeton
will join the Independent Review Panel and that Ms Guthrie will
participate in the program as an expert advisor. The standing of
these individuals should provide customers further reassurance
that they will receive fair and impartial treatment under the
Open Advice Review program,” Ian Narev, chief executive of the
banking group, said in a statement about the appointments.
The appointments mean the bank can put finishing touches on its
review programme, including naming independent customer
advocates; the main role of these people is to support clients
through the review and remediation
process. Commonwealth Bank said is in advanced
discussions with a number of plaintiff law firms to provide this
service at no cost to customers. Finalisation of the appointments
is expected in coming weeks.
The bank said it has also appointed McGrathNicol as the
programme’s Independent Forensic Expert. McGrathNicol is a
leading independent Australian advisory firm with extensive
experience in forensic investigation.
Commonwealth Bank's Open Advice Review programme is designed to
deliver an efficient, fair and consistent outcome for any
customer of Commonwealth Financial Planning or Financial Wisdom
who may have received poor financial advice between 1 September
2003 and 1 July 2012.