Retirement
ASIC drags AMP to court over no-service super fees
Australia’s security watchdog is taking six companies under the AMP umbrella to court over charging fees for no service on superannuation accounts.
ASIC drags AMP to court over no-service super fees
Australia’s security watchdog is taking six companies under the AMP umbrella to court over charging fees for no service on superannuation accounts.
ASIC has alleged that half a dozen AMP-affiliated entities have been charging fees for no service on corporate super accounts.
In a statement, the regulator said that over 1,500 customers had been charged advice fees while also being told they were unable to access relevant advice because they had left their employer-sponsored super account.
ASIC said that the AMP raked in approximately $600,000 in fees from affected accounts between July 2015 and April 2019.
The regulator has now commenced civil proceedings in the Federal Court against six companies, which include AMP Superannuation Limited, AMP Life Limited, AMP Financial Planning Proprietary Limited, AMP Services Limited, Charter Financial Planning Limited and Hillross Financial Services.
While AMP Life Limited is now part of the Resolution Life Group, ASIC said that it was part of AMP when the conduct occurred.
The regulator called out AMP for failing to ensure that a system was in place that did not charge customers who had left their employer-sponsored account, arguing it had contravened the company’s “obligations as Australian financial services licensees to act efficiently, honestly and fairly”.
This latest legal stoush between ASIC and AMP follows a similar set of proceedings involving the regulator and a number of other AMP companies and allegations that the latter charged life insurance premiums and fees to over 2,000 customers they knew to be dead.
While AMP conducted a remediation program covering 2,500 affected super accounts in 2019, ASIC has said it is seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties and adverse publicity orders against the companies. No date on the proceedings has yet been set.
The move comes weeks after ASIC announced it had finalised its investigation into criminal allegations of fees for no service conducted by AMP Financial Planning Pty Limited following a consultation with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
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