Commonwealth Bank chases Omni Bridgeway for $34.6m costs fighting Luke Saraceni, Hossean Pourzand claim

Commonwealth Bank is chasing litigation funder Omni Bridgeway for $34.6 million of bills allegedly racked-up fighting failed legal claims by Raine Square developers Luke Saraceni and Hossean Pourzand. The bank claims that Omni Bridgeway is liable to pay its legal bills after having funded and underwritten legal actions overwhelming rejected by a Supreme Court judge in August 2020. The litigation funder, formerly based in Perth and known as IMF Bentham, had bankrolled claims by the developers and by the liquidator of their Raine Square development Westgem under an agreement struck in April 2011. CBA put receivers into Raine Square and seized various securities from the developers in January 2011, more than than two years after pulling the $500 million development’s main backer BankWest from the wreckage of UK bank HBOS. CBA claims in a new Supreme Court action that Omni Bridgeway is liable to pay a variety of costs orders made against Mr Saraceni and private companies after the August 2020 decision. That allegedly liability is linked to a so-called deed poll filed with the Supreme Court in 2012 in the early stages of the failed claims. The deed poll allowed Omni Bridgeway to fund the litigation but made it responsible for a variety potential cost orders against the complainants should their claims fail, the bank claims.