Question 3 (10 marks)

Tom is the CEO of Raise Ltd, a financial services provider with an arm of its business specialising in loan products for small and medium sized (SME) businesses in Victoria. Tom is friends with Victor, a director of BigFour Co Ltd, an Australia wide auditing firm with its head office in the Melbourne CBD. Victor tells Tom about Smithlays Group, an up and coming group of businesses in the hospitality industry. Based on the advice from Victor, and an audit report produced by BigFour Co Ltd, Raise decides to provide loans to companies both within the Smithlays Group and some other companies associated with Smithlays, accepting guarantees of repayment by Smithlays for these loans. Several months later, Smithlays goes bankrupt and Raise lose a significant amount of money.BigFour Ltd argue that the audit report was only for Smithlays and that Raise should have done its own research about the financial health of the Group before providing the loans.

Advise Tom. Discuss whether Victor and/or BigFour owe a duty of care to Raise.

Please use case law and/or statute to support your answer.

Use IRAC