The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) finally decides to commence legal proceedings against the owners of Storm Financial and three major banks that facilitated loans on investors, who saw their investments melted away when the investment firm collapsed.

ASIC said on Friday that Storm founders Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis are poised to be charged with civil liabilities for violating their duties as directors of the failed Queensland company, which would lead to the pair being prevented from administering financial services, managing corporate firms and giving out considerable amounts as financial penalties.

Also, the corporate watchdog would be seeking compensations through legal suits against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Macquarie Bank and Bank of Queensland for allegedly conniving in the unregistered management investment scheme that resulted to lost investments for many of the banks' clients.

ASIC, however, is still wiling to give the three financial institutions three more weeks to come up with a viable commercial resolution for its customers as it noted that the compensation proposal so far pushed forward by the Commonwealth Bank to Storm investors seemed unsatisfactory.

ASIC chairman Tony D'Aloisio said in a statement that as of his last check, "an acceptable commercial resolution has yet to be reached with key parties on compensation," and under such conditions, the regulator would only be compelled to start exercising its legal options.

Mr D'Aloisio, however, clarified that despite the imminent legal proceedings "ASIC remains of the view that a commercial resolution is the preferable course."

In its statement, the Commonwealth Bank sounded surprise and disappointed that despite its initiatives of pushing for the Resolution Scheme, which has so far resulted to an estimated 85 percent of resolved claims, ASIC still decided "to commence legal proceedings which will only create further uncertainty for former Storm Financial investors."

Also, Macquarie Bank released its own statement, where it vowed to defend itself from the planned legal actions by ASIC, which the bank called as purely unsustainable and speculative when pitted to its actuations on the Storm case, that was adjudged by an independent legal review as "ethical, lawful and professional."