Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Parliamentary Inquiry into collapse of Storm and Opes

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services has today decided will hold an Inquiry into the collapses of Storm Financial Services, Opes Prime and other similar financial product and service providers.

Queensland Liberal Senator Sue Boyce, who is a member of the committee, moved the motion for the committee to establish the inquiry.

“It is very important that we get to the bottom of how these financial service providers have been allowed to collapse and strip hundreds of Australians of their life savings,” Senator Boyce said.

“The Inquiry will examine the general regulatory environment underlying these products and services and will examine the role played by advertising and marketing campaigns designed to encourage people to purchase these products”.

“The Inquiry will also consider the adequacy of professional indemnity insurance arrangements as well as the need for any other regulatory change to avoid similar collapses in the future”.

“With an economy on the slide and heading towards recession, we need to ensure that investors, particularly small investors, can be confident that all arms of government are doing their best to ensure that all investments made are based on sound advice.”

Senator Boyce said that submissions to the parliamentary joint committee’s inquiry will close on July 31 and the Committee will report to the Parliament on November 23.

Senator Boyce encourages individuals and organisations interested in making submissions to the inquiry to lodge their submissions as soon as possible so that the committee has the opportunity to have a further examination of the lead up to and collapse of these financial service providers.

Terms of reference will be able to be obtained from the Committee’s website.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/corporations_ctte/index.htm

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