Regulators

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has called for a suite of new laws to curb “widespread, entrenched, and systemic” consumer and competition issues on digital platforms.

Optus has agreed to pay a $13.5 million penalty for misleading thousands of NBN customers into paying for internet plan speeds that could not be achieved, the telco’s third penalty in four years over misleading representations made in relation to its NBN services.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has argued that disclosing its money laundering failures before AUSTRAC brought proceedings would have misled the market, as the bank takes the rare move of defending a shareholder class action at trial.

Liberty Financial unit Minerva has challenged a judgment that found two schemes it carried out were done with the primary purpose of securing a tax advantage.

While CBA’s defence to a shareholder class action argues the bank did not need to disclose money laundering failures because it doubted AUSTRAC would take legal action, communications show it was drafting a defence six months before proceedings started, a trial has heard.

The former director of investment management fund Courtenay House has pleaded guilty to five criminal charges after an ASIC investigation revealed he duped 585 investors in a $180 million Ponzi scheme.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia knew about a “catastrophic” code error that caused widespread non-compliance with money laundering rules two years before it was disclosed to the market, a court has been told in a rare shareholder class action trial.

A court has found National Australia Bank engaged in unconscionable conduct in knowingly overcharging thousands of customers periodic payment fees for four years.

The outgoing deputy chair for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says Australia “really needs” a new unfair practices law, echoing sentiments from the regulator’s former boss.

The wife of a billionaire developer targeted in a $272 million proceeding by the Australian Taxation Office has lost a bid for suppression orders over the affidavits of a tax official she said would cause the couple to suffer reputational and commercial harm.