Macquarie Group has paid $6 million to settle a five-year legal dispute with Ballarat businessman Brendan James who accused its investment advisers of artificially inflating the price of a small mining company and encouraging him to buy more shares when it proved to be worthless.
An adviser at the nation’s largest investment bank then sold stock held by family members and favoured wealthy clients before the share price collapsed.
Macquarie also agreed to pay $1 million towards Mr James’ legal fees, but refused to make any admissions about its brokers’ conduct under a confidential deal finalised in March.
Mr James lost about $4 million with Macquarie Private Wealth after his late brother-in-law, former St Kilda captain and Richmond coach Danny Frawley, recommended in 2010 that he invest the proceeds from the sale of his crane company with the bank known as the “millionaires’ factory”.
More here – The Sydney Morning Herald
PS: What amazes me is that this sort of behaviour was going on when I was involved in broking so it seems that despite changes in regulation little can be done to change the behaviour of some in the industry.
And whilst Macquarie has had to pay (who knows if they really knew what was going on?) … the real offenders get off scott free?