Five companies tied to the AMP group have been fined $14.5 million after knowingly charging superannuation clients fees for services they could no longer access.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The penalty was handed down in the Federal Court on Tuesday after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission took action.
More than 1450 superannuation customers were paying fees for general financial advice as part of deals between AMP and their employers.
But fees continued to be automatically deducted after members left their jobs and no longer had access to the financial advice.
Between July 2015 and September 2018 customers wrongly paid $356,188 in fees. AMP paid back $691,032 to affected members.
The conduct reflects "very poorly" on AMP, Justice Mark Moshinsky found, adding it was surprising that despite repeated complaints no one in the organisation questioned whether it was a systemic issue.
"While it is not suggested that senior management were involved in the contraventions, in my opinion it reflects very poorly on the organisational culture that this type of questioning did not occur," he said.
The AMP companies included AMP Superannuation Limited, AMP Financial Planning Proprietary Limited, Charter Financial Planning Limited and Hillross Financial Services Limited.
AMP Life Limited was also involved, but is no longer owned by AMP.
The court found AMP breached its financial services licensing obligations by having no internal procedures or controls to prevent the misconduct.
Australian Associated Press
