Set up as a campaign group last year in response to the number of small businesses affected by the derivatives scandal, Bully Banks has now registered as a company, Ordinary People in Business, with all 1500 members owning a £1 share of the not-for-profit business.
One of Bully Banks’ directors Ian Parker said the conference would be a platform to set out the structure of the new company and to outline various routes of litigation that may be open to its members.
He added: "We want this company to represent the victims of this scandal and co-ordinate a course of legal action for individual members to follow.
"The people affected by this are just ordinary people, not derivative experts, which is why the banks have been able to hoodwink them into taking on these swaps."
Last month Surrey-based Alderson Print Group became the first print company to publicly accuse a bank of mis-selling it an IRSA, following the collapse of its web division ABP Web.
Parker said that Bully Banks had already struck an agreement with "a large city legal firm" who had agreed to provide the company’s members with a no-win-no-fee service to able them to start legal action against banks without having to find vast sums of money to do so.
He added: "We hope to develop a consortium of solicitors who will communicate with each other about the various cases they are working on so that we get a consistent set of circumstances and agreements from banks across the country."
At a recent meeting with Treasury representatives Bully Banks put forward its concerns about the Financial Services Authority’s review into banks’ derivative sales and requested a clearer definition of how the mis-selling of products is defined.
Parker said that progress had been made. He added: We are certainly making progress and are in direct contact with the FSA. We aren’t looking to bash banks. We are simply looking to get what we are entitled to in terms of being mis-sold a product."
For more information about Bully Banks go to www.bully-banks.co.uk
