Investors cheated by Melissa Caddick before her disappearance and death will earn part of their $ 23 million in losses after setting a Class Action right case with its auditors.
Victims have already been reimbursed for $ 7.25 million after liquidators from the dead fraudner had sold her assets in 2023 and 2024.
The 32 investors launched a Class Action in September 2023 to request compensation from the five companies that checked Caddick's accounts between 2012 and 2020.
They claimed that the auditors were unable to identify or determine fraudulent documents or to hold shares that the fraudster claimed to hold in the self-managed Superannuation funds of the victims.
Federal Court of Justice Brigitte Markovic indicated a further victory in the procedure on Monday, which illuminated a settlement of $ 3.5 million green that was agreed with the five auditors in September.
“It's a great result for the group members,” director of the Class Action Advocate Office Mackay Chapman's director Michael Chapman told AAP.
The lawsuit was aimed at obtaining the highest fee for victims in the most efficient way, he said.
The auditors have not allowed any liability to agree to the settlement.
Melissa Caddick disappeared without track in November 2020
Prior to her disappearance and death, the 49-year-old investors of $ 23 million deceived
A little less than half of the $ 3.5 million go to lawyers at Mackay Chapman and Litigation Funder Therium who supported the lawsuit.
Mackay Chapman from Melbourne receives around $ 1 million in legal costs plus an extra $ 127,000 to send the remaining funds to investors.
Therium receives a committee of $ 492,000.
Mr. Chapman said that the amounts represented a discount of approximately 70 percent of the costs due to ensure that at least 50 percent of the settlement returned to the victims.
“We wanted to ensure that justice was done,” he said Aap.
The remaining $ 1.73 million in funds is expected to be sent back to investors within a month.
Caddick, a self -proclaimed financial adviser, plundered $ 23 million from family and friends through an investment scam to lead a life of luxury.
Bruce Gleeson, from Liquidators Jones Partners, said that in 2024 investors would reclaim about 32 cents in the dollar.
Anthony Koletti (right) was the last person who saw his wife Melissa Caddick alive alive
The 49-year-old disappeared in November 2020, days after her luxury house in the prosperous east of Sydney was attacked by Asic agents who are investigating her Ponzi schedule.
Caddick was concerned with 'a sham or facade' with the help of her company Maliver to transfer investors funds, Justice Markovic found in a separate federal lawsuit filed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in November 2021.
Maliver was used to hide that the funds of victims were not used to buy shares for their self-managed Superanniety funds, but previously spent on the lush lifestyle of Caddick, the judge said.
A Class Action right that was launched by 32 of the former investors of Caddick has succeeded in recovering millions of the lost money. She is depicted with her husband Anthony Koletti
Coroner Elizabeth Ryan in May 2023 ruled that Caddick was dead, but she could not determine the cause because the majority of her body was not found.
In February 2021, the poorly dissolved right foot of the fraudster, who was still attached to a running shoe, was washed on a beach on the south coast of NSW.
Caddick's husband Anthony Koletti was the last person who saw her live alive and explained her missing.
He withheld information with regard to the disappearance of his wife and could not be excluded from involved, the coroner thought.
