I should be struck off for inflating fees, top silk Norman O’Bryan tells court

A leading commercial silk has told a court he should be struck off as a barrister after conceding he inflated legal fees and misled the court.

Norman O'Bryan.

A leading commercial silk has told a court he should be struck off as a barrister after conceding he inflated legal fees charged to victims of collapsed financial group Banksia and misled the court.

Lawyers for Norman O’Bryan SC made the admissions in the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday, during the sixth day of hearings into alleged misconduct by Mr O’Bryan, barrister Michael Symons and litigation funder Australian Funding Partners Limited.

The admission comes after Peter Jopling QC, acting for the court-appointed contradictor, spent three days detailing alle­gations that Mr O’Bryan, Mr ­Symons and AFPL engaged in a fraudulent scheme to inflate their entitlement to legal fees and lied to the court.

Allegations included backdating invoices for legal bills.

The Victorian Court of Appeal had approved $64m of the class action but rejected about $12.8m in funding commissions and $4.7m in legal costs.

Mr O’Bryan’s barrister, David Batt QC, told a shocked courtroom his client had dropped his defence to the allegations.

“[Mr O’Bryan] will not contend against the court making findings in respect of him in accordance with those allegations … Mr O’Bryan will not oppose this honourable court removing his name [from] the Supreme Court Roll. He accepts that that should occur.”

The revelations have stunned the Victorian legal establishment.

Mr O’Bryan, who has acted regularly for the Australian Sec­urities and Investments Commission, is a scion of one of Victoria’s most distinguished legal families: both his grandfather, Sir Norman O’Bryan, and his father, Norman O’Bryan, were judges of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

His brother Michael is a Federal Court judge and brother Stephen, a Victorian silk, was a founding commissioner of the state’s anti-corruption watchdog.

Mr O’Bryan was a former partner of law firm MinterEllison, and in 2016 was awarded the Victorian Bar’s Ron Merkel QC Award for pro bono work.

The Banksia class action was filed in 2012 after the finance group’s collapse, which left investors $663m out of pocket. AFPL, the brainchild of former MinterEllison partner Mark Elliott, stepped in to fund the class action.

“It was an integral element … of the misconduct of Messrs Elliott, O’Bryan and Symons that they misled the courts in the way that would shock the courts, all legal practitioners and the lay public,” Mr Jopling told the court.

Ordinarily, the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner would commence disciplinary action against a legal practitioner; the Supreme Court of Victoria also has the power to remove a solicitor or barrister from the legal rolls.

A spokesman for Victorian Legal Services Commissioner Fiona McLeay declined to comment on whether any investi­gations into Mr O’Bryan’s admitted conduct were under way in light of the admission, but said the Commissioner had the power to undertake investigations in cases where they “become aware” of ­potential wrongdoing.

It is unclear whether Mr O’Bryan could face criminal fraud charges.