Entities linked to late solicitor Mark Elliott have offered a settlement to end the pursuit of damages for Banksia class action members, but the deal would leave a significant sum held on trust by the Elliott parties out of reach.
Former top silk Norman O’Bryan, who is facing criminal charges for his role in the notorious Banksia Securities class action, has secured a second adjournment of his case.
Former top silk Norman O’Bryan will face court this month on charges following civil findings he engaged in a fraudulent scheme as senior counsel for the Banksia Securities class action.
A firm created by solicitor Mark Elliott as a vehicle to launch shareholder class actions has been taken to court by Myer over an unpaid $1.4 million legal bill racked up in defending a class action that was thrown out as an abuse of process.
Allowing former senior barrister Norman O’Bryan to reopen his defence in the Banksia class action while “avoiding the witness box” was clearly prejudicial, and futile to boot, a judge has said in his reasons for refusing the silk’s last-minute application.
Once high-flying barrister Norman O’Bryan might seek to challenge a refusal by the judge overseeing the Banksia class action to revisit his abandoned defence and accept into evidence a document he claims proved he did not secretly hold shares in the funder behind the case.
The litigation funding company controlled by the late solicitor Mark Elliott has told a court of its “remorse and regret” for its misconduct in the Banksia Securities class action, a case that has been described as the “darkest chapter in Victoria’s legal history”.
Barrister Norman O’Bryan SC has failed in his last-ditch bid to reopen his defence in the Banksia class action to submit evidence he says shows he did not retain an interest in the litigation funder behind the case.
The son of the funder behind a class action at the centre of scandalous misconduct claims says he would have sought advice from a family friend if he had realised his father and counsel leading the case were misleading the court to inflate their profits from a $64 million settlement.
Solicitor Alex Elliott has said it never clicked with him that members of the legal team running the Banksia class action were misleading an appeals court when his father — the mastermind behind the alleged deception — told him to sign cheques for lawyers that they could not cash.