2015 - 2016

Lending

Non-property lending

Mr E was the director of a company that took a bank loan guaranteed by his partner, Ms A. They separated in 2009 and Mr E asked his bank to remove her as a guarantor. The bank agreed to his request, but did not actually discharge the guarantee.

The bank discovered its mistake in 2015, and wrote to Mr E advising him of this fact and that it had now removed her as a guarantor. Mr E complained to the bank that she might have received confidential information about his company. After searching its records, the bank said it could find no evidence of any disclosure of confidential information to Ms A. However, in recognition of its mistake, it offered compensation of $1,000.

Mr E was not satisfied with this offer and wanted the bank to prove, to his satisfaction, that Ms A never received any information about his company. He therefore brought his complaint to us.

We got in touch with the bank to ensure it had conducted a detailed search of its records. The bank confirmed it had done so and could not find any breaches. Given there was no evidence the company’s confidentiality had been breached, we considered the bank’s offer was reasonable and encouraged Mr E to accept it.

Mr E asked his accountant to try to locate evidence of a confidentiality breach but, after that proved unsuccessful, he accepted the bank’s offer.