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A special report for the Center for Media and Democracy by Glen Frost, Editor of The PR Report: "Class action against banks ensures 'access to justice' says Australian Minister"

According to the organizers, it's Australia's largest class action lawsuit: a case of disgruntled bank customers versus the big banks.

Financial Redress, a specialist in recovering compensation from financial institutions for excessive charges or mis-selling, and a subsidiary of litigation funder IMF Australia, is launching a class action against a number of Australian and foreign banks (with operations in Australia) who have allegedly overcharged customers for years.

The fees in question are honour and dishonour fees on overdrawn bank accounts and over-limit and late payment fees on credit cards. Financial Redress refers to these as "exception fees" and alleges that the banks have been charging customers an "unfair" amount. Customers are both individuals and businesses.

UPDATE ON THE BANKING FRONT: The only thing with teeth left in the Dodd financial reform bill -- provisions introduced by Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln that would force the biggest banks to spin off their swaps (or derivatives) desks into separate entities -- may be taken out without even getting a vote. It may be stripped out via a Dodd "manager's amendment," which is being created privately in negotiations with Senators. A manager's amendment is a package of numerous individual amendments agreed to by both sides in advance.

Right now is an important moment to call Senator Lincoln's office and tell her to defend her original language to end federal and taxpayer backing for reckless Wall Street gambling. You can reach her office at (202) 224-4843.

Last year, right-wing activists masqueraded as a pimp and a prostitute and used a phony storyline and a hidden camera to take down the community group ACORN. ACORN was eventually absolved and the unsavory tactics of the right exposed, but that hasn't stopped the right from moving on to a new target: the Berkeley, California-based Greenlining Institute. Like ACORN, the Greenlining Institute is a progressive organization that advocates for the poor and works for economic justice. It also supports implementation and enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law passed in 1977 to mitigate deteriorating conditions in low and moderate-income neighborhoods by addressing the practice of redlining -- denying credit or insurance to people based on their ethnic background or neighborhood. Groups like ACORN and the Greenlining Institute draw the wrath of wealthy corporate interests because they seek government regulation of lucrative but abusive or harmful business practices.

Map of Gulf spill on May 8, with fishing closure areaAt first, right after the BP Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded on April 20, BP and U.S. government officials reported the underwater well was pumping about 1,000 barrels a day into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. A few days later, that figure was challenged by the non-profit group SkyTruth, which uses remote sensing and digital mapping to evaluate environmental issues globally. Ten days later, by April 30, some industry experts said the well could be leaking at a rate of 5,000 barrels daily -- five times the previous estimate, and the one that has been the most widely and persistently used in the media.

Wildly Disparate Estimates

But estimates continue to change. On May 4th, BP executives in a closed-door meeting reportedly told Congress that the well is discharging anywhere from 5,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf per day. At 42 U.S. gallons per barrel, that means the spill could be growing by 210,000 to 2.52 million gallons of oil each day. But how much is that, really?