RBA and Treasury greenlight predatory lending

Wednesday 22 July 2020

Via the AFR:

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has decided not to appeal to the High Court its case against Westpac for alleged responsible lending failures, after the heads of the Reserve Bank of Australia and Treasury both privately warned it would exacerbate economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

Sources told The Australian Financial Review ASIC’s leadership group met for several hours last Friday and on Monday, with an overwhelming majority of ASIC commissioners voting against appealing the so-called “shiraz and wagyu” case it has lost twice in the Federal Court.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.