Publicity Notice

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered AustralianSuper Pty Ltd (ACN 006 457 987) (AustralianSuper) to publish this notice.

Following action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), on 21 February 2025, the Federal Court of Australia ordered that AustralianSuper pay total pecuniary penalties of $27 million to the Commonwealth for failures in handling members’ multiple superannuation accounts within the AustralianSuper Fund.

The Court found that AustralianSuper:

  • between 13 March 2019 and 20 June 2022, failed to establish rules which set out a procedure to identify and merge members’ multiple accounts in accordance with section 108A of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (Cth) (SIS Act);
  • between 13 March 2019 and 11 May 2023, failed to promptly identify and merge affected members’ multiple accounts in the way that the SIS Act would have required; and
  • between 13 March 2019 and 11 May 2023, failed to promptly remediate affected members,

and, by that conduct, did not:

  • exercise, in relation to the interests of its beneficiaries, the same degree of care, skill and diligence as a prudent superannuation trustee would have exercised;
  • perform its duties and exercise its powers in the best interests and best financial interests of its beneficiaries; and
  • do all things necessary to ensure that financial services covered by its Australian Financial Services Licence were provided efficiently, honestly and fairly.

Failing to merge duplicate accounts can have significant financial consequences for members including paying multiple sets of fees eroding their superannuation balance.

ASIC expects that superannuation funds will put their members first and promptly address issues that cause members to face multiple sets of fees and insurance premiums. It expects these issues be identified and rectified quickly, including compensating members if a trustee has failed to comply with its obligations.

AustralianSuper self-reported its conduct to regulators, admitted the contraventions and the orders of the Federal Court of Australia were made by consent.

The Federal Court took into account that AustralianSuper had taken significant steps to remediate the harms caused by its failures and that it has, since identifying its misconduct, significantly uplifted its obligations and incident management systems and processes in an effort to ensure this conduct does not recur. Between May and June 2023, AustralianSuper paid approximately $69 million to 90,000 affected members as part of its remediation program in respect of losses caused by the multiple accounts issue since 1 July 2013.

Further information

AustralianSuper’s conduct contravened the following financial services laws:

  • sections 912A(1)(a) and 912A(5A) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth); and
  • sections 52(2)(b), 52(2)(c) and 54B(1) of the SIS Act.

For further information about the conduct, see the following links:

Back to top