Has this affected me?
The alleged cartel conduct caused loss to foreign exchange customers in Australia throughout the period 1 January 2008 and 15 October 2013 by artificially increasing the cost of buying certain currencies and artificially decreasing the price received when selling certain currencies. The affected currencies are one or more of the following currencies:
You are likely to have been affected by this conduct if, throughout the period 1 January 2008 to 15 October 2013, you were party to foreign exchange transactions that involved one or more of these currencies.
How do I register?
On the registration portal, you can register your interest and details. As part of the registration process, we will also ask you to provide us with information about the approximate value of your foreign exchange transactions, the currency pairs exchanged in the transactions, and which bank (or banks) were counterparties to the foreign exchange transactions.
FAQ’s
On 27 May 2019 Lawtax360 issued the Australian Foreign Exchange Cartel Class Action in the Federal Court of Australia.
We recently won an application requiring the respondents to provide us with certain material that they previously handed over under settlement agreements the US and Canadian actions. This is a victory for group members as it will assist us in continuing to gather evidence to support our claim.
Yes – you do not need to have engaged in FX transactions directly with the respondents in order to register in the FX class action.
The alleged cartel conduct caused loss by artificially increasing the cost of buying certain currencies and artificially decreasing the price received when selling certain currencies. This affected currency prices in the market regardless of whether you bought from one of the respondents or any other financial provider/ bank.
The claim only relates to FX spot trades and FX forward trades. The following transactions are not recoverable in the Australian class action: FX swaps, FX options, FX futures contracts, options on FX futures contracts, and other instruments traded in the FX Market.
Registration will not expose you to any out of pocket costs. Unless and until there is a successful outcome, all costs will be borne by Taxcellent Consulting Services. There is no litigation funder involved in the FX class action.
In the event of a successful outcome, any costs payable to Taxcellent Consulting Services will be deducted from, and will not exceed, any compensation that you are entitled to receive.
At this stage, we do not require claimants to provide us with any foreign exchange transaction data. We will likely make requests for data as the matter progresses, but we will discuss this with claimants as the need arises.
For the moment, we simply ask that claimants retain and not destroy (and ask any third parties/ custodians who may hold such records to retain and not destroy) any FX transaction data and records that they have for the period 1 January 2008 to 15 October 2013.
At this stage, it is too early to assess how much individual claimants will receive if the case is successful. The amount is likely to depend upon the amount of foreign exchange transacted by a claimant, the currency pairs traded in the relevant transactions, and economic evidence in relation to how the alleged cartel conduct affected those currencies during the period 1 January 2008 to 15 October 2013.
Yes – foreign entities which are not domiciled in the US and Canada, that arranged foreign exchange transactions in Australia (i.e. through an Australian sales desk or broker or where the trade was otherwise effected in Australia) are eligible to register.
We note that due to the claims made and settlements reached in the US and Canada, entities which are domiciled in the US and Canada are precluded from registering in the Australian FX class action.
Based on our investigations, we believe that a successful outcome in this class action is reasonably likely.
Where seven or more people have claims that arise out of similar circumstances, a class action can be brought by one claimant on their own behalf and as a representative of others.
The class action process saves time and expense by avoiding the need for the courts to determine common issues of fact or law more than once. Class actions are efficient, enabling disputes and claims involving large numbers of people to be resolved via a single case.
Awards & Accreditations.
Taxcellent Consulting Services Services’ small business accountants are proudly recognised by the following accreditations and awards
“lawtax360 AS has been outstanding to work with and has been instrumental in our business growth in the last 3 years. We have worked with other accountants and advisers in the past that will complete our accounting work but no more and do not understand our business and industry. lawtax360 AS, on the other hand, understand our goals and map out strategies for growth. They go above and beyond and come up with key issues we would never have known about.”
“Davie and his team has helped our startup get off the ground, it has brought peace of mind knowing that the accounting side of our business can be taken care of while we can focus on our business. Being able to have him and the team contactable to ask questions about accounting best practices or other accounting related questions has allowed us to focus on providing value to our own customers.”
“We first engaged Lawtax360 AS for advice on the business acquisition and liaising with financiers, solicitors and the vendor. The team at Lawtax360 AS is highly professional, knowledgeable, committed and hard-working. We were really happy with the initial service that we decided to continue our engagement with a month to month accounting service.”
