Sarah Pritchard

The judge hearing ASIC’s case against super fund Cbus has criticised the practice of exchanging concise statements and responses, saying it was a “false economy” of time and cost savings.

Commonwealth Bank units CommSec and Australian Investments Exchange have been ordered to pay more than $27 million for “serious and unacceptable” system failures that led to excessive fee charges for customers.

A judge has questioned AMP Financial Planning over whether it breached court orders to compensate customers after finding the firm failed to prevent a now banned adviser from churning life insurance for higher commissions.

A judge has raised concerns that AMP Financial Planning has not compensated customers for allegedly failing to prevent life insurance churning, directing the firm to explain the “vanishingly small” number of people who have been remediated.

Commonwealth Bank unit CommSec has agreed to pay a $20 million penalty for a series of “serious and unacceptable” failures that lead to excessive fee charges, a court has heard.

The Federal Court has imposed a penalty of almost $5.2 million on AMP Financial Planning after finding it was “reckless” in its “lamentable failure” to properly respond to a now banned adviser who was churning life insurance for higher commissions.

A judge has given the thumbs up to AMP’s new program to identify and compensate victims of so-called insurance churning by its financial planning arm after inadequacies were revealed in the original scheme.

Australian coal miner Moreton Resources has won a Full Federal Court appeal over tax offsets it claims are owed over a failed pilot project testing underground coal gasification, a process which was ultimately banned in Queensland.

AMP Financial Planning has attempted to qualify its admission to so-called insurance churn allegations by the corporate watchdog, suggesting it might not have admitted to “all contraventions” if it had known ASIC would push for up to 120 separate breaches and $36 million in penalties.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has asked a court to impose penalties of up to $36 million on an AMP subsidiary for failing to take reasonable steps to stop its representatives from churning life insurance policies.