Has the National told shareholders “the whole story”? Does this issue have the potential to cause Australia’s biggest bank much grief this year. You be the judge.

National chief executive Frank Cicutto and his chairman Mark Rayner have been putting on a brave face about the $32 billion law suit against Australia’s biggest and most successful bank. The case comes to trial in June. It involves an e-commerce joint venture the National hatched in 1996 with a Sydney company Idoport Pty Ltd (known as JMG after its colorful founder John M Maconochie of Sydney).

Can such an extraordinary claim be serious? Who is Mr Maconochie? Can his company JMG seriously take on the mighty National and win? Have CEO Cicutto and Chairman Rayner told their shareholders the “whole story”? Is there really “no material exposure” to the National as they say?

In our debut issue we look at what Cicutto’s predecessor, Australia’s “BANKER of the Decade” (Australian Banking & Finance magazine, November 1999), Don Argus, and National’s Board, let the National’s shareholders in for with this deal.