Chinese lender Aoyin must pay PricewaterhouseCoopers’ legal costs for a vacated trial after Aoyin’s eleventh hour decision to join Baker McKenzie to a $10 million cross-claim in a dispute concerning the accounting firm’s advice on its failed bid to launch the first Chinese incorporated bank in Australia.
National Australia Bank has been hit with a $18.5 million fine after admitting to allegations by ASIC that it failed to adequately disclose its adviser fees for five years.
A judge has found PwC should face a claim that it engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct while assisting Chinese lender Aoyin with its planned launch in Australia by failing to properly advise the company there was a risk its shareholders did not comply with APRA’s ‘fit and proper’ requirement.
National Australia Bank has urged a court to impose a $15 million penalty for its five-year failure to adequately disclose its adviser fees, and has argued ASIC’s push for a steeper penalty goes too far.
National Australia Bank has admitted in court it broke the law by charging fees it was not entitled to collect, but the bank and the corporate regulator are $25 million apart on what is an appropriate penalty.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has won access to communications between a Chinese lender and its lawyers at Baker McKenzie in a legal stoush over a failed bid to launch the first Chinese bank incorporated in Australia.
National Australia Bank’s “grossly deficient” systems and failure to swiftly bring its processes into compliance prompted ASIC to launch its second fees-for-no-service case against the bank, the Federal Court has heard.