One of Australia’s largest debt collection firms has claimed that scandal-plagued Panthera Finance was not technically banned from operating in Victoria after it was blacklisted by the state’s consumer watchdog.
Consumer Affairs Victoria launched legal action against Panthera Finance last year, alleging it operated in the state illegally after a federal court ruling in 2020, and despite warnings that doing so could amount to a criminal offence.
Panthera has been charged with 15 breaches of the act in relation to consumer debt linked to energy retailer Momentum Energy.
Appearing before the Melbourne magistrates court on Monday, legal counsel for Panthera Finance – which was bought by Francom Group in December 2024 after it was placed in administration by its financial backers Brookfield – outlined why it believed it should not be prosecuted by Consumer Affairs Victoria for allegedly flouting the ban.
Francom Group is not accused of any wrongdoing.
After purchasing the company, Francom announced that it would be seeking to resolve the legal proceedings against Panthera “as quickly as possible”.
“When we took over, we immediately set about transforming the company and aligning its debt practices with Francom’s, which are underpinned by strong moral and ethical values,” a spokesperson for Francom previously told the Guardian.
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Guardian Australia revealed on Monday that Panthera attempted to claw back more than 200,000 individual debts in Victoria between May 2022 and June 2024 by relying on an associated entity to continue “business as usual” in the state.
Francom said it “categorically denies the accuracy of the alleged facts the Guardian has presented.”
In submissions to the court, Dan Star KC argued that Panthera could not have been a “prohibited person” as alleged by the prosecution, because the company was not technically engaged in debt collection, according to the relevant legal definition.
Under section 3 of the Australian Consumer Law and Fair Trading Act, a debt collector is defined as someone who “for remuneration or reward”, will “collect, attempt to collect, or request payment of, debts owed to another person”.
Star argued that because Panthera Finance had “acquired” the debts, it was not technically engaged in collecting debt owed to a third party. Instead, he claimed that Panthera Finance was collecting debt that it now owned.
The Victorian prohibition came after a 2020 federal court ruling found that Panthera had unduly harassed three consumers for debts and was fined $500,000. Consumer Affairs Victoria claims that the court’s finding that Panthera Finance had breached this section of federal consumer law made it a “prohibited person” under the state’s debt collection laws.
But Star argued that just breaching the federal law was not sufficient to be deemed a prohibited person, and the definition under state law included the phrase “while engaging in debt collection”.
“That phrase is fundamental,” Star said.
“There is a particular definition; there are things that are on one side of the line, and things that are on the other side of the line.
“The prosecution do not put forward one iota of evidence at all about whether or not what was in the federal court proceedings involved debts owed to another person.”
Star argued that when Panthera had breached the act, it had done so in relation to a debt that it owned, and not a debt owed to a third party.
“We say that there is just a complete absence of any evidence of the defendant being a prohibited person,” Star said.
But counsel for Consumer Affairs Victoria, Oren Bigos KC, said the wording of the act was broad enough to encompass debts that “are or were owed to another person”.
He referred to witness evidence in the federal court case that concerned Panthera pursuing debts that individuals owed to utilities including Origin, Telstra and AGL.
Magistrate Michelle Hodgson told the court she would consider submissions and would make an order next Tuesday on whether to commit the case to trial.
• This article was amended on 18 November 2025 to add information underlining the fact that the court case relates to conduct prior to Francom Group’s acquisition of Panthera Finance.
