Four Corners: Apr 7

Next Monday on Four Corners Linton Besser reports on Australia’s shadowy world of unregulated lending.

Ian Lazar is one of Sydney’s more colourful business identities. He calls himself a mortgage trader and buyer of default securities, and he promises his clients assistance in their darkest hour. But many of these people end up worse off than when they engaged him, losing their businesses and their homes.

This week, Four Corners reporter Linton Besser delves into Australia’s shadowy world of unregulated lending to discover how this unlicensed financier – whose work has prompted multiple complaints to the corporate regulator – continues to operate.

Among Lazar’s victims are graziers, small-business owners, Aboriginal communities and even high profile identities like Kevin Jacobsen, the well-known concert promoter.

His modus operandi is consistent in each case examined by Four Corners. Lazar targets people in financial difficulty who cannot refinance with a major lending institution. He offers to help them out of trouble and talks up his access to a multi-billion-dollar fund that can buy out distressed mortgages. Lazar introduces his clients to solicitors, accountants and insolvency practitioners, but there are serious questions about the credibility of some of these advisers.

There are similar questions about exorbitant fees charged by Lazar and what work he actually performs to justify them.

“They were desperate people and people in that situation are vulnerable… He talks big about what he’s going to do for you and his capacity to assist you and his connections with the world which are unique to himself and which he can bring to bear to assist you.” – Barrister formerly working on behalf one of Lazar’s clients

But Australia’s corporate regulator – the Australian Securities Investment Commission, or ASIC – has washed its hands of policing the business-to-business lending practices of Lazar and others who operate outside the major banking institutions.

Lazar himself says: “It’s very sad when anybody loses money, whether you’re a young person, an old person, a sick person, but business is business. I’m not trying to run or pass any kind of morality test.”

Of course, Lazar is not the only one operating in this unregulated marketplace, where the vulnerable are traded like a commodity. Many are appalled at the poor regulation of the sector.

“I can’t believe that our legal system has demonstrated such passivity, not so much from the bench in the civil jurisdiction, but that the criminal justice system and ASIC and others with responsibility for these activities have been so ineffectual for so long.” – Criminal defence solicitor

Monday 7th April at 8.30pm on ABC1.