The royal commission that Liberal MP for Cook and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, along with the rest of his government, fought so hard to prevent delivers another damning report.....
Financial
Review, 24
August 2018:
NAB and Commonwealth
Bank have been lashed in a 200-pagedocument published by the Hayne royal commission that details thousands of
breaches of the law including the Corporations Act, the Superannuation Industry
Supervision (SIS) Act and the ASIC Act – some of which carry criminal
penalties.
Counsel assisting the
Hayne royal commission Michael Hodge QC has said it is open to the Commissioner
to make these findings against the banks in a blockbuster closing statement
published just before 7pm on Friday evening.
The two banks are not
alone, with open findings also delivered against AMP
for breaches of the Corporations Act and the SIS Act, against IOOF for
breaches of the ASIC Act and the SIS Act, against Suncorp for breaches of the
Corporations Act, the ASIC Act and the SIS Act, and against ANZ for breaches of
the Corporations Act.
Open findings of law
breaches have also been delivered in relation to case studies that were not
heard in public with Westpac and AON Hewitt sized up for breaches of
the Corporations Act.
NAB and Commonwealth
Bank have been singled out, however, for repeated and systemic
breaches of laws which included NAB's inability to notify ASIC of breaches of
licence conditions under Sections 912D of the Corporations Act and CBA's
13,000-fold breach of the SIS Act.
NAB came in for a
spectacular serve from counsel assisting the Hayne royal commission, who
described the bank's negotiations with ASIC over the fees for no service
scandal as "ethically unsound" as it tried to substitute services it
promised to provide with services it did provide.
Mr Hodge also said the
bank was engaged in unconscionable conduct over the charging of fees and its
attempts to weasel out of repayments despite knowing the "fee should never
have been charged to members and was not adequately disclosed".
NAB
chief customer offer Andrew Hagger was singled out for his dealings
with the regulator over the fees for no service scandal which counsel assisting
said revealed "disrespect for the role of the regulator and a disregard
for the gravity of the events".
Counsel assisting
submitted that "no reasonable person would believe that NAB's
communications with ASIC" over the matter that would see NAB on the hook
for almost $90 millin in refunds were "open and transparent" -
despite the bank's attempts to characterise its actions as just that.
In addition, the systems
and controls the bank had to monitor the provision of advice were
either not adequate, non-existent or ineffective according to
the savage take-down……
Much of the bank's
offending related to its inability to move more than 13,000 super fund members
to low-fee MySuper accounts after January 1, 2014 - leaving them in higher-fee
paying accounts instead. The bank's communications with members about the issue
was described as misleading by counsel assisting, with the bank's witness
accepting the description during the hearings.
CBA's platform operator
Aventeos also was the subject of open findings for the charging of dead
customers for financial advice, a practice counsel assisting said was in breach
of Section 52 of the SIS Act.
The lengthy document
will add even more fuel to the fire that has singed the for profit super sector
following revelations they have charged customers more than $1 billion in fees
they have never provided, including to dead
customers, and then lied to regulators about it.
The prospect of criminal
charges was first raised by Commissioner Hayne himself when he asked NAB's
superannuation trustee Nicole Smith "Did you think yourself taking the
money to which there as no entitlement raised a question of criminal
law?"
Diversified financial
services company AMP - which was excoriated
for its dealings with the regulator in the second round of hearings
- was exposed for an arrangement that saw its superannuation trustee
contracting out services it was meant to undertake to other arms of the
business.
During the hearings it
was revealed the arrangement, which oversaw $100 billion in retirement savings
spread over the accounts of 2.5 million members, meant AMP's trustee was unable
to lookout for its members by stopping AMP from gouging account holders or
looking for another service provider….
Read the full
article here.
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