Category: Banking and Finance

Financial Services Royal Commission Final Report – Key recommendations relating to consumer lending

The Banking Royal Commission was established by the Federal Government in December 2017.  The Federal Government released the Commission’s Final Report on 4 February 2019.  While the Commission has made a number of key recommendations that affect consumer lending, it has resisted making recommendations effecting wholesale change to the banking sector.

Contract: Amendment or replacement?

Parties to a contract enter into a further contract by which they vary the original contract terms. Is the effect of the second contract to bring the first contract to an end and to replace it with the second, or to leave the first contract standing, subject to alteration?

Balanced Securities Limited v Dumayne Property Group Pty Ltd [2017] VSCA 61

Lender’s power to seek summary dismissal of a claim not straightforward in the case of alleged penalties

The Supreme Court of Victoria has partly granted an application by a financier, Equity-One, for summary dismissal of a claim brought against it by a borrower/guarantor.  The decision considers the principles applicable to summary dismissal of a claim where allegations of Anshun estoppel and the doctrine of penalties are raised.

Divergence in summary disposal of cases shown by contrasting recent decisions by the Courts of Appeal in Victoria and New South Wales

The decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal demonstrates how a strict approach to granting summary judgment still prevails in that jurisdiction. There is in pronounced contrast to the post – Civil Procedure Act landscape in Victoria, where novel claims (unknown to Australian law in its current state) need to be supported by compelling submissions in order to survive the ‘no real prospects of success test’.

Characterising interests in funds paid into Court – PPSA security interests or not?

While courts have long wrestled with the proper characterisation of parties’ interests in money paid into court, the journey of judicial interpretation of the PPSA has only just begun. In Dura the Victorian Court of Appeal considered whether payments into court gave rise to security interests for the purposes of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA).