The new suit, filed Friday in the Federal Circuit Court of Sydney, is the fifth wage case against Macquarie and brings claims on behalf of 20 former advisers in its private wealth unit.

The advisers include Sydney-based Michael Briody, Michael Crone, Morise Saba and Suhas Mahajan, who were among 10 former Macquarie staff to leave the firm for Shaw & Partners in June last year.

A spokesperson for Macquarie said the bank would be defending the suit.

“Macquarie categorically rejects that these employees weren’t being paid the minimum wage and will strongly defend the case,” the spokesperson said.

The suit comes as Macquarie reached a confidential settlement with six former NSW-based financial advisers, who brought their Fair Work case in the same court in July last year.

That case came on the heels of two other lawsuits by former advisers alleging the bank paid them solely in commissions and owes millions of dollars in wages under the Banking Finance and Insurance Award.

The bank was hit with a suit in the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane on July 13 on behalf of 12 ex-advisers seeking $3.25 million in unpaid wages. Another case was filed in Sydney in June by 15 ex-advisers demanding $2.6 million in wages.

A suit by eight Melbourne-based advisers, was filed in April 2017. That case went to mediation and appears to have been resolved in talks in November of that year.

In August last year, Macquarie filed its defence in the Brisbane suit, denying claims it paid its advisers entirely in commissions and unlawfully withheld regular wages.

The bank told the court the employees were given a remuneration package that involved a minimum “Basic Cost Responsibility”, which included annual remuneration, superannuation, fringe benefits tax, payroll tax, workers compensation insurance and goods and services tax and commission payments for commissions above the BCR.

“The BCR is the base rate of pay within the meaning of section 16 of the Fair Work Act,” Macquarie said answer to the case, brought by a dozen Queensland-based advisers.

The advisers were also paid for periods of annual leave and long service leave, where applicable, Macquarie said. The bank also shot back at claims it did not pay redundancy to three of the advisers,

The 12 advisers in the Brisbane case, two of whom had worked for Macquarie for more than 20 years, are seeking back pay for underpayment of wages. The amounts allegedly owed range from $170,000 to $350,000 for each adviser.

Macquarie is represented by K&L Gates.

The applicants in the new case are represented by Williamsonbarwick Lawyers. The applicants in the settled case are represented by Opus Legal.

The new case is Michael Briody & Ors v Macquarie Bank Limited. The settled case is Joshua Bull & Ors v Macquarie Bank Limited.