Victims of poor advice at the hands of Rollo Sherrif and other financial planners from the former Financial Wisdom-owned practice Meridien Wealth are continuing to sign up to the class action.
Launched by plaintiff legal firm Shine Lawyers and the re-birthed Meridien Wealth, public meetings have begun to attract new potential litigants, according to David Adiseshan, managing director of Meridien Wealth.
Around 150 additional former clients came forward at the most recent session, held in Cairns on 16 July. Adiseshan and Sasha Ivantsoff, NSW class actions practice leader at Shine Lawyers, say they are hopeful of adding another 100 names to this list after the next public meeting on 14 August.
“We’re starting to collect those names and send them to Shine…former clients of Investorcoach and Irwin & Sheriff [former trading names of Meridien Wealth] who didn’t know they had advice issues are starting to return to Southern Cross Financial Advisers,” says Adiseshan.
However, Adiseshan suggests that the high level of public attention the meetings are drawing, including from television news programs, is putting off some potential class action participants.
He describes some people as walking into the first meeting, seeing the Channel 7 cameras and turning around to walk straight back out, not willing to share their sensitive personal information in front of such scrutiny.
Group meetings
According to Ivantsoff, the public meetings “end up being more of a Q & A session than anything else. We explain where they stand, how we can help them.
“We get lots of questions about the process, what the banks are doing, whether we would have to resort to litigation. We’d hope not to, but we don’t rule it out,” he adds.
Adiseshan describes the CBA’s role in overseeing restitution and compensation as being “both gamekeeper and poacher”.
Highlighting why he believes these meetings are necessary, he references CBA whistleblower Jeff Morris in describing the situation of Financial Wisdom’s advice victims: “they need to be sold, not necessarily buy, participation in the class action”.
Emphasising why such measures are being adopted, Ivantsoff says of CBA: “They’re not going to be writing to anyone and suggesting [they may be owed compensation]…we’re trying to spread the message far and wide, ‘if anyone thinks they’ve been affected, to get in touch with us’”
Both Ivantsoff and Adiseshan highlight the lengthy timeframes litigation invariably involves.
“I’ve got 14 years of records on my CRM system. It will take time before they see any money, whether or not it’s litigated…we need to let them know there is time and effort involved in trying to get them compensation and restitution,” says Adiseshan.
He also alludes to the extensive restructuring he has undertaken since taking over the business. While keeping the brand Meridien Wealth, he has also introduced an “umbrella brand” of Southern Cross Financial Advisers.
“We put that in because, while some people have an affection for Meridien, which has been around since 2005-06, others were so poorly advised that it was necessary to demonstrate that every aspect of the business model was changed…some people wanted a different brand.”
Asked whether he expects the case will ultimately be decided in court, he adds: “I’m hopeful, but I grow less optimistic as the details emerge quite slowly, you can’t avoid the structural flaws.”
“I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some litigation. The bank’s too lazy, in my view, to implement a process which they think is going to circumvent or resolve some of the restitution matters without litigation.”
Bank pack-pedals
Adiseshan believes CBA is back-pedaling from its offer of $5,000 toward independent advice for individual former Meridian clients who believe they may have a case to be heard.
While Ivantsoff declines to describe it in the same terms as Adiseshan, who uses the word ‘resile’, he says “their interpretation of it is probably different to the way we see it”.
“They’re saying the offer is for people who’ve already had a review…that if you haven’t had a review, then you’re not eligible.”
The initial round of advertisements that ran in the Cairns Post, as attached here, gave no such indication.
What happens next?
Both Ivantsoff and Adiseshan suggest there could be further public meetings held in key locations across Queensland.
“It’s a big process, we’ve taken a lot of detail from people who’ve called in already, we can run them through fairly quickly,” says Ivantsoff.
“We would like to see it all wrapped up in a matter of months, but these things don’t usually go that way, unfortunately.”
