Chapter 27
Ewen dashed across Mounts Bay Road towards the Perth Conference Centre.
Despite the morning’s heavy warmth, he sprinted up the open-air stairs to the concourse belonging to the Talc and Ferber office block. How weird, he thought, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission nestled within a building owned by a financial consulting company as large as Talc and Ferber. Conflict of interest? Need to lob the public servants somewhere, I guess.
While he was passing through the automatic glass doors, a light brown, elegant North African girl breezed out. Yes to multiculturalism, he mumbled, looking around for a building directory.
To his left, at an empty table, sat the concierge looking like a movie usher in his cheap vest and tie. “May I help you?” he asked Ewen.
“A steak sandwich would be fab.”
The concierge quickly scanned the empty foyer and lowered his voice, “How about a shit sandwich. Like in the movie, Tim. One of Mel Gibson’s breaking roles. Perhaps the sandwich will benefit your career. If you even have a career.”
“Well, I’m not in the Four Seasons New York,” beamed Ewen.
“And neither am I…and I’m so glad I met you, because I now know from deep down in my ball sack, I’ve had enough of this post and wankers like you. I’ve actually had enough of this backward city. So today, I’ll try my best to get fired, go on the dole, and plot my escape.”
“Good luck. ASIC?”
He pointed. “Elevator. Level one. Turn right. Even you couldn’t miss it.”
Inside the lift, Ewen said to himself, I’d quit, no probs. The cool air stirred his imagination. The air-conditioning in every CBD building would be on. Most houses in Perth also. That’s only one city. What about the entire world’s summer aircons whirring away? Crazy. The lift pinged open to reveal two bare offices, To Let signs plastered across their window fronts.
Down the hall, he pushed a glass door into a clinically clean, white room. Behind the front counter, a large window framed a leafy oak tree reaching up from the court below.
Asked to wait by ASIC’s male receptionist, he sat on a leather chair beside the window. The neat white office reminded him of newly built houses and how visiting those homes made him feel old and out of place. A man, open business shirt, walked down a corridor and introduced himself as Ivan Combo. They grabbed a coffee and sat in Combo’s office overlooking the same oak tree.
Why don’t men shave off what little hair they grow? reasoned Ewen. Combo’s half-bald scalp looks like bulrushes encircling a duck pond.
“Insider trading is a very broad subject,” said Ivan. “Where do you want to start?”
“How difficult is it to prosecute for insider trading?”
“Extremely. Last year the ASX investigated one hundred and sixty cases and referred fifty to us. We seriously examined four of those fifty.”
“Four. How many did you prosecute?”
“One.”
“Terrible odds.”
“Not for the inside traders.”
“So, it’s prevalent?”
“Oh yes. The trouble is trying to amass the evidence to prosecute. Traders might hide behind offshore companies. They might say their stock analysis was on target and they bought big. The problem is trying to link the inside information given to the third party back to the company insider. Also, there may be no third party. Just a greedy executive with prior knowledge hinting at a profitable deal.”
“And when the Fortune Bank went under, the other banks had a higher proportion of short trades. Did you look into it?”
“Yes. Nothing conclusive. We did follow a paper trail for a large short on the Commonwealth Bank. It ended offshore in Luxembourg with its client confidentiality. Luxembourg will cooperate in specific cases, but the proof must be concrete. It wasn’t. Anyway the paper trail could easily take off again from Luxembourg through a shell corporation via Bermuda or Cayman Islands.”
“So your convictions come from traders using Australian bank accounts?”
“Basically.” He checked Ewen. “Writing an article specifically on inside trading?”
“Yes,” he lied. “When the Fortune Bank collapsed, and the Aussie share market followed, somebody must have made a lot of money. Money simply doesn’t disappear.”
“You’re on the money. Excuse the pun. Look at GFC One. Well over a trillion dollars down the drain due to subprime mortgages. But the money wasn’t lost. Some investors won big-time.”
“Could’ve the Fortune collapse been orchestrated for someone to short the Aussie market?”
He smiled. “I haven’t heard that conspiracy theory before. And I’ve heard a few…we don’t discuss individual cases unless already tried. I can say this though; a few finance bigwigs are within our cross hairs. And we have a saying in the department—greed and grease sound similar.”
“Meaning?”
“Every now and again the bigwigs slip up.”