Parties involved in a Storm Financial class action against Australian banks, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), will begin mediation talks in the new year.
Levitt Robinson Solicitors and Attorneys principal Stewart Levitt said mediation would occur by the end of February 2012.
However, Levitt said despite moving to mediation, there was no assurance a settlement would be reached.
"It depends on the offer, but if the price is right. Obviously there is a group that wants blood and there are other people who want peace," he said.
"So at the end of the day there's no perfect justice, but I think the potency of these amendments is that the bank shareholders might be worried, but the executives don't see their careers on the line over a finding that there is an unregistered managed investment scheme.
"An unregistered managed investment scheme is something that people can't necessarily recognise without the benefit of perspective."
However despite this, Levitt said he believed "careers can be made or broken" on the strength of unconscionable conduct and misleading and deceptive conduct; two such claims Levitt's case is seeking to push in court.
Late last month, Levitt claimed a small victory on behalf of the Storm class action when Justice Reeves allowed amendments in both the CBA and Macquarie actions.
"He [Reeves] has allowed the amendments to be made over the opposition. The banks, particularly Commonwealth Bank, who tried to stop the amendments going through and their counsel Robert Hollo described these amendments as being tectonic," Levitt said.
"He thought they shouldn't be made as they were made after proceedings were set down for trial, but notwithstanding it is still 10 months out from any trial and three months out from any mediation."
Levitt put to the court that CBA and Macquarie had not only breached their contracts with the former Storm clients, but the banks acted in an "unconscionable manner".
He said the banking groups acted in a way in which they effectively had arrangements in place with Storm which effectively meant that without their clients' knowledge they would not be making margin calls.
Instead they would be managing the clients' portfolio in a way that "suited the banks and Storm rather than the clients", he said.
"We think that the more scrutiny there is about what went on, the better placed our clients will be to cut a deal with the bank or get justice at the end, notwithstanding that perfect justice is not something that's available usually through the legal system."
Levitt Robertson directly represents 480 ex-Storm clients.
Meanwhile, on 30 November, ASIC announced it would continue its compensation actions against Bank of Queensland, Senrac Pty Limited and Macquarie Bank after the Federal Court rejected challenges to the corporate regulator's pleadings.
Justice Lindsay Foster declined to strike out the statement of claim filed by ASIC on behalf of two former Storm investors (Barry and Deanna Doyle), but required ASIC to clarify certain aspects of the claims by filing an amended statement of claim.
