Fin Review - 12/4/2010"Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has arranged...

Fin Review - 12/4/2010

"Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has arranged for more than 1600 of its customers to be blacklisted with credit agencies for refusing to pay back loans used to invest in agribusiness group Great Southern.

But the bank has backed down from listing a group of 300 borrowers who challenged in court the bank's right to credit list them.

A four-month fight in the NSW Supreme Court has wound up with Bendigo Bank agreeing not to hand over the names and addresses of Steve Navra and the clients of his financial planning firm to credit agencies. Mr Navra's lawyer had argued the bank had no right to credit list the clients until it had proven the loans, which were originally provided by Great Southern, had been validly assigned to the bank.

'We see it as a complete victory to our application,' Mr Navra's lawyer, Daren Anderson, said on Friday. 'We only brought the application to preclude them from listing until they have given us the [assignment] documents.'

But Bendigo Bank has promised that any celebrations will be short-lived. Bank spokesman Will Rayner said by agreeing to Mr Navra's demands the bank would be able to speed up the debt recovery process by simply suing the customers for the unpaid money.

'We will now proceed to sue those represented by ERA Legal, and to recover any money outstanding and owing to the bank,' Mr Rayner said.

He said the majority of defaulting borrowers had already been listed with credit agencies - more than 1600 people.

Bendigo Bank has also sued nine borrowers."

Further on it continues -

"Bendigo also faces a potential class action brought by MacPherson and Kelley lawyers who say they have 1600 clients. The firm's Stuart Walter said the class action was still being prepared.

The same firm acts for seven of the nine people already being sued by the bank. Late last week MacPherson and Kelley filed defences and counterclaims to Bendigo Bank's lawsuits.

Great Southern and it's founder, John Young, have been added as defendants and, in a likely indicator of what will be alleged in the class action, MacPherson and Kelley claim the product disclosure statements given to their clients were defective and as a result the loans should be voided"