Commonwealth Bank hit with class action

Slater and Gordon has filed a class action lawsuit against CBA, alleging that the bank sold the products to hundreds of thousands of customers despite admitting they were worthless.

“CBA confirms that Slater and Gordon [has] announced a consumer credit insurance class action against CBA and CMLA,” a CBA spokesperson told Investor Daily. “Slater and Gordon [has] not yet served CBA with any legal proceedings.

“We will carefully consider any allegations once the claim is received.”

Slater and Gordon claims that existing policies have been rolled over and customers continue to be charged thousands of dollars in fees.

“A 2018 review of the Commonwealth Bank’s sale of consumer credit insurance products revealed that more than 200,000 people who were unemployed or not working [full-time] had been sold this type of policy, meaning it was very unlikely they would have been able to claim against the insurance,” said Slater and Gordon practice group leader Andrew Paull. “This is reprehensible behaviour by the bank, which has chosen to compensate only a negligible portion of its customers, despite their admission that they knew the insurance was worthless.

“This move to return only a small portion of its [customers’] premiums seems to have been a tokenistic effort to protect the bank’s brand, rather than a genuine attempt to make good its past wrongdoing.”

Slater and Gordon recently settled a class action against NAB for $49.5 million, and has filed similar class actions against ANZ and Westpac earlier this year.

CommBank was recently forced to pay out a $5 million dollar penalty after the Federal Court found that’s its AgriAdvantage Plus Package breached the ASIC Act and the Corporations Act.