Commonwealth Bank-owned stockbroker CommSec has acknowledged the decision of the Federal Court of Australia, following civil proceedings brought by corporate watchdog ASIC.
In March 2021, ASIC commenced civil penalty proceedings against CommSec for alleged breaches of the Market Integrity Rules, Corporations Act, and ASIC Act relating to systemic compliance failures in the delivery of financial services.
The court approved the $20 million penalty and the compliance programme that CommSec had agreed with ASIC. The court also accepted that there was no evidence to indicate that any of the contraventions were deliberate.
“We apologise to our customers who were impacted by our mistakes,” CommSec EGM Richard Burns said. “These errors never should have happened. CommSec has paid total remediation of $6.5 million (including interest) to customers affected by the issues and this program is now complete. We have strengthened our systems and procedures to address these errors. We will implement a compliance programme as agreed with ASIC and required by the court which will be monitored by an independent expert, and we fully support this process.”
In a media release, CBA said the issues arose from errors such as information technology system coding or systems issues, human error, and/or data entry errors. The issue where there was a direct financial loss to some customers was in relation to instances of brokerage overcharging.
