Is this a case of a bank trying to suppress corrupt practices?
Investment fund advisors at the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) stripped millions off customers by (fraudulently) manipulating their super funds – to increase their bonuses. (Shhhh)
Michael Fraser
Michael Fraser runs the website The Arbitrator – with a motto ‘Driving positive change in corporate Australia’ – and battled on behalf of unhappy customers.
Report here at Kangaroo Court “Now the CBA CEO Ian Narev is now using legal threats and the courts in an attempt to shut-up whistleblowers regarding the massive fraud and theft at the bank.
And Minister Julie Bishop’s younger brother Douglas Bishop is the lawyer representing Commonwealth Bank executive Brendan French in defamation proceedings against whistleblower Michael Fraser.”
As reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, this “should send shivers down the spines of whistleblowers around the country.”
And, “The bank is funding the defamation, but says it is not party to the proceedings, “Our employees are entitled to use the court processes and the law of defamation to protect their reputation…” a CBA spokesperson said.
Fraser splashed the front pages of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in October 2013 when CBA got caught red handed in a spying scandal, with senior politicians spied on and photographed by private detectives at a political fund raiser for Nationals senator John Williams, who had spearheaded a senate inquiry into the bank’s financial planning scandal.
The bank had hired global security firm G4S (who have managed some of Australia’s detention centres) to conduct “Operation Lantern” on Fraser between August 28, 2013 and September 1, 2013.” Full story here.
Hangthebankers reported CBA’s spying in October 2013.
Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is the use of the “security” company that advertises on its website that it aids “compliance.” I wonder to what extent the employees of Dyncorp, etc have been told that nothing they do will provoke a prosecution. I seem to recall Representative Cynthia McKinney at a Congressional hearing, complaining that such a company was auctioning slaves in Kosovo. Not that she couln’t have used the power of the purse to control it, but the legislature tends to forget that they have that power.
Some upper-crust law firms in the US describe their services as including “Crisis management.” This means “If you have a whistleblower problem we can help you.”