Richards v Macquarie Bank Limited (No 2) [2012] FCA 1403

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Richards v Macquarie Bank Limited (No 2) [2012] FCA 1403 Citation: Richards v Macquarie Bank Limited (No 2) [2012] FCA 1403

Parties: TRACEY RICHARDS v MACQUARIE BANK LIMITED

File number: QUD 590 of 2010

Judge: REEVES J

Date of ruling: 12 December 2012

Catchwords: PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – admissibility of evidence – tendency evidence s 97 Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) – where tendency evidence constituted representations made by various financial advisers employed by the same corporation to 12 other customers –where relevant fact in issue was whether representations were made to the applicant by two financial advisers of the corporation on two separate occasions – whether the tendency evidence had "significant probative value" to a tendency of the corporation's financial advisers to make the alleged representations to the applicant – where the representations allegedly made to the applicant were of an unusual nature – where only one of the tendency evidence representations was "strikingly similar" in nature to the alleged representations – where that representation was made some time before the alleged representations – where that representation was made by different financial advisers at different locations from the alleged representations – whether striking similarity in the nature of that representation and the alleged representations outweighed by stark differences in timing and circumstances – whether conduct of individual financial advisers could be viewed as conduct of the corporation – where the number of incidents in which the tendency evidence representations were made represented only a small fraction of the corporation's operations in that period