ANZ today announced that the Federal Court of Australia has approved its agreement with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to settle court action relating to the charging of fees, prior to February 2016, for periodical payments in some circumstances.
ANZ has previously conducted a remediation program in relation to periodical payment fees charged over the period since 1 January 2008 and, since 2016, has made or will make payments totalling over $49 million. Certain periodical payment fees were also the subject of a class action which was settled in December 2018, with ANZ paying approximately $760,000.
In the action brought by ASIC, ANZ has acknowledged contraventions which relate to:
- the wrongful charging of some periodical payment fees in the period from 26 July 2013 to 24 September 2015; and
- not remediating some fees charged to customers between July 2005 and December 2007.
ASIC had pursued ANZ in respect of 1.3 million occasions of fees being charged. In the settlement, ANZ admits to contraventions in respect of 327,895 occasions, relating to fees totalling approximately $3.1 million. ANZ also admits to six other related contraventions.
As part of the settlement ANZ will pay $10 million and $1 million towards ASIC’s costs.
