NAB charged over $100m fees
THE corporate watchdog has launched proceedings against National Australia Bank in the Federal Court over the group’s superannuation fee-for-noservice scandal.
In a lawsuit filed yesterday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has alleged NAB’s superannuation trustees, Nulis Nominees and MLC Nominees, misled super customers and deducted $33 million in fees from 220,000 people without providing services.
On top of that, a further $67 million was taken from another 300,000 super savers where members did not receive services, ASIC claims.
NAB could be facing a fine of up to $35.7 million because among dozens of alleged legal breaches are 21 counts of making false or misleading statements under a provision of the ASIC Act that can each attract a penalty of up to $1.7 million.
The bill could soar further if the court decides that every occasion the bank allegedly hoodwinked each of the hundreds of thousands of customers should count as a separate breach. Sister regulator the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre took that approach when taking the CBA to court over 53,000 breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorismfinancing laws.
While it can be a crime to breach the section of the ASIC Act in question, the regulator has stopped short of accusing NAB of criminal wrongdoing.