ASIC has taken two NAB wealth management units to court for allegedly charging superannuation members around $100 million in fees for services they never received.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the corporate regulator claims NAB units NULIS Nominees (Australia) Limited and MLC Nominees Pty Ltd deducted around $100 million in fees from superannuation clients’ accounts for services they never received.
NAB is the first bank to be sued over the fees for no service scandal that has rocked the Royal Commission into the banking sector.
ASIC said the lawsuit was part of “broad-ranging and significant investigations” underway into the fee for no service scandal, through which it expects to recover more than $850 million for affected customers through its remediation efforts.
NAB Chief Legal and Commercial Counsel Sharon Cook said the bank was still assessing the details of the case.
“We will consider carefully the allegations that have been made,” Cook said.
“We respect the work of our regulators and will work with ASIC on these matters.”
The lawsuit claims that between September 8, 2012 and June 30, 2016, the units made monthly deductions totaling more than $33 million from the accounts of 220,000 members of the MasterKey Super that had no linked financial adviser and around $67 million in fees from 300,000 members of the fund that had linked advisers but where members did not received no services.
ASIC claims the NAB units violated section 912A(1)(a) of the Corporations Act by deducting the fees and violated sections 12DB, 12DA of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 and s1041H of the Corporations Act by misrepresenting to non-adviser members that they were obliged to pay the fee and by failing to inform linked members of their right to turn the fee off.
It also claims NAB violated s912A(1)(c) of the Corporations Act by failing to comply with financial services laws , failing to exercise the degree of skill, care and diligence a prudent trustee would exercise and failing to act in the best interests of members.
NULIS remediated no-adviser members $35.9 million between October 2016 and June 2017, and announced in July that it would refund link members approximately $87.1 million.