ASIC has taken American Express Australia to court over two credit cards co-branded with department store David Jones which the regulator alleges customers mistakenly believed were loyalty cards.
A judge has set aside a tribunal’s decision not to disqualify a SMSF auditor for breaching independence rules, finding the tribunal had failed to consider general deterrence.
Westpac has lost a bid to keep group members in the dark about the premiums paid for allegedly worthless consumer credit insurance, information the bank said could inflate expectations about settlements worth $126 million reached in three class actions.
Vanguard Investments has coughed up almost $40,000 for allegedly misleading investors about funds that purportedly did not invest in companies that sell or manufacture tobacco.
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”.
Federal prosecutors pursuing a case against Members Equity have lost an appeal of a ruling that threw out half the charges against the direct bank as time barred, with an appeals court finding the ASIC Act imposes a hard deadline for bringing a criminal case of misleading or deceptive conduct.
Payday lenders BHF Solutions and Cigno are fighting ASIC’s bid for an injunction barring them from breaching consumer credit laws, with BHF claiming it should not be exposed to contempt.
The judge whose ruling against the legal team behind the Banksia class action fraud helped redeem the battered reputation of the civil justice system may be asked to disqualify himself from the final fight in the drawn out case.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has placed interim stop orders on two crypto funds distributed by Perpetual Investment Management Limited, citing the need to protect retail clients from investing in risky, volatile funds.
Fintech company Block Earner has been hit with enforcement action by the corporate regulator alleging it sold crypto asset products without a licence and operated an unregistered managed investment scheme.