The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has taken two National Australia Bank (NAB) trustees to court in relation to fees charged to a significant number of superannuation members for financial advice that was not provided.
Asic alleges that NAB’s current and former superannuation trustees, Nulis Nominees (Australia) and MLC Nominees, misled members of certain superannuation products.
The case is Asic’s first legal action over the industry-wide scandal that has reportedly cost customers around A$1bn (£558m, $719m, €619m).
The financial watchdog is seeking a civil penalty and a Federal Court declaration that NAB contravened various financial services law.
The infractions
Nulis and MLC allegedly deducted around A$33m in service fees from 220,000 members despite them being ‘no-adviser members’.
NAB also reportedly charged around A$67m in service fees from 300,000 members despite advisers not being required to provide services.
Asic said “the commencement of this civil penalty action is part of its broad-ranging and significant investigations currently underway into fee for no service failures in the financial services industry”.
Alongside these investigations, the Australian financial watchdog is obtaining considerable remediation for impacted customers, currently estimated to exceed A$850m.
