Commonwealth Securities Limited (CommSec) acknowledges the decision of the Federal Court of Australia, following civil proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in March 2021.
CommSec did not defend the proceedings and the Court today approved the penalty of $20 million and the Compliance Programme that CommSec had agreed with ASIC.
CommSec cooperated with ASIC in relation to its investigation and these proceedings and the Court accepted that there is no evidence to indicate that any of the contraventions were deliberate.
CommSec Executive General Manager Richard Burns said: “We apologise to our customers who were impacted by our mistakes. 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.”
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.
If any customers have any concerns or questions regarding the above matters, we encourage them to contact CommSec on 13 15 19.
