The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has launched civil penalty proceedings against superannuation fund StatePlus over fees allegedly charged for services that were not provided to tens of thousands of members.
Two Westpac units have made admissions and said they would not defend proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over fees charged for services that were not provided to hundreds of financial advice customers.
The prefab concrete specialist behind Sydney’s Opal Tower, which has been targeted in a class action over the ill-fated building, has told a court that a dispute with its insurer should be resolved promptly so that it can defend itself in the proceedings.
The law firm behind a long-running class action against Pitcher Partners over its auditing of Slater and Gordon is seeking court approval to drop the case, leaving the funder that bankrolled the proceeding to defend an application for indemnity costs.
Westpac anti-money laundering compliance troubles continue to worsen, with the bank reporting an additional 365,000 incomplete or inaccurate threshold transaction reports to AUSTRAC.
Commonwealth Bank’s wealth management unit Colonial First State has admitted misleading conduct in certain calls to superannuation members, but has otherwise denied claims by the corporate watchdog that it misled over 12,000 fund members during the transition to MySuper accounts.
Elderly victims of Ponzi schemer Bradley Sherwin have told the government’s class action inquiry of their “horrendous class action journey”, which led to a “pathetic outcome” in which the majority of a $12 million settlement with the Bank of Queensland went to the law firm and funder behind the case.
Westpac has denied claims in a shareholder class action filed in the wake of AUSTRAC proceedings alleging 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws, saying the information the class action says it should have disclosed to shareholders “did not exist”.
A judge has cut a request a security for costs in half in insurance rectification proceedings stemming from two class against sandalwood producer Quintis, saying the amount proposed by the funders bankrolling the case was “quite generous”.
Insurance giant Allianz is facing a class action over allegedly “poor value” or worthless car and motorcycle insurance products.