ASIC has escaped an individual insolvency practitioner’s bid for indemnity costs in its failed case alleging illegal phoenix activity, with a judge finding the regulator did not unreasonably reject a settlement offer that would have netted it “a considerably better result” than it won at trial.
A judge has ordered National Australia Bank to pay just one-fifth the $10 million penalty proposed by ASIC for overcharging customer fees, taking aim at the regulator’s concise pleading and saying the maximum penalty he could order was “woefully inadequate”.
The corporate regulator has failed in its case targeting an individual insolvency practitioner for alleged illegal phoenix activity.
NAB has told a court it should pay a $2 million penalty — not the $10 million proposed by ASIC — for engaging in unconscionable conduct by overcharging customers, saying the exact words used in the regulator’s concise statement accuse it only of a single contravention.
Two home finance companies and their father-son directors have been hit with $150,000 in penalties after a judge found they failed to cooperate with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority in an ASIC enforcement action and subjected AFCA staff to “inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour.”
ASIC has lost a case accusing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia of hitting customers with $55 million in unauthorised fees, with a judge finding that nearly 1 million customers charged the fees should have known that even banks “sometimes make mistakes”.
A court has found National Australia Bank engaged in unconscionable conduct in knowingly overcharging thousands of customers periodic payment fees for four years.