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The 2021-22 CDPP Annual Report was tabled in Parliament on Friday 28 October 20

The CDPP recently received an overall satisfaction score of 86 per cent from its biennial 2022 Partner Agency Survey.

The CDPP's 2022-26 Corporate Plan is now available.

The Attorney-General of New South Wales today announced the appointment of Ms Sarah McNaughton SC as a judge of the Supreme Court of NSW. 

The CDPP’s Library and Research Services team has won the 2022 Legal Information Service of the Year award announced at the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA) conference in Hobart on Thursday 26 August.

On 7 July 2022 the Commonwealth Attorney-General, the Honourable Mark Dreyfus QC MP, announced he had declined to proceed further in the prosecution of Mr Bernard Collaery for five offences relating to the alleged unlawful communication of ASIS information contrary to the Intelligence Services

On 11 February 2022, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Ms Sarah McNaughton SC announced her decision to decline to proceed further in the criminal prosecutions of Citigroup Global Markets Australia Pty Limited, Deutsche Bank AG and four senior banking executives for cartel offences

The CDPP 2020-21 Annual Report was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday 20 October 2021. 

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Sarah McNaughton SC, has been extended in the role for a further two years.

The CDPP has launched a new Partner Agency Portal, giving investigators from partner agencies easy and timely access to information.
The last 12 months has tested businesses, including the CDPP, to become more agile to effectively deliver services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) is an independent prosecution service established by Parliament under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1983 (Cth) to prosecute alleged offences against Commonwealth law.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is warning members of the community to beware of scammers claiming to be from the CDPP.
The CDPP’s Partner Agencies will soon have access to a refreshed, scalable and dynamic, secure website to support their investigative work.

This is a joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions

A 24-year-old Sydney man has been jailed for nine years and four months after he posed as a teen to exploit and extort explicit images from children online.

Note: This is a joint media release between the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions

A serial paedophile who abused children in Australia and Southeast Asia has today been sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 28 years.

On 7 November 2019, Richard Ham (21) and Soo Lee (24) were sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales after pleading guilty to attempting to possess a commercial quantity of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), more commonly known as ‘ecstasy’.

Today, Perth woman Alesha Stopforth (30) was sentenced in the District Court of Western Australia to 3 years imprisonment, to be released after serving 16 months upon entering into a Recognisance Order in the amount of $10,000 and to be of good behaviour for a period of 20 months, after pleading

Suzanne Akkari (25) was today sentenced to 18 months imprisonment to be released forthwith on a recognisance of $500 and to be of good behaviour for 18 months, after pleading guilty to a charge of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring another in the arrangement of a marriage to obtain perman

Today*, Savas Avan (49) was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria to 3 years imprisonment, after pleading guilty to mailing packages containing asbestos to consulates and embassies in Melbourne and Canberra.

Today, Luke Borg (36) was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria after pleading guilty to a number of child sex offences.

A man from Sydney was today sentenced to a total term of imprisonment of 34 years, with a non-parole period of 29 years, for preparing and planning a terrorist attack, threatening to kill the NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services and for an attack on an inmate in custody.

Three Victorian men were today sentenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria for the offence of engaging in a terrorist act.  A jury had earlier found the men guilty of this crime by setting fire to a Shia mosque in suburban Melbourne, causing $1.5 million in damage.

The Victorian County Court has today sentenced Mohamed Osman Omar (36), to four years imprisonment, after he pleaded guilty to defrauding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) of more than $370,000, and attempting to obtain a further amount of more than $85,000.

Charging adviser service fees to dead superannuation members: former CBA subsidiary fined seven figures in landmark criminal case

Year
2021-2022
Location
Victoria

Date of Judgment: 15 June 2022 

Court: County Court of Victoria, Melbourne 

Partner Agency: Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) 

Summary of Charges:  

Avanteos Investments Ltd (Avanteos) pleaded guilty to 18 charges under s1021J of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).

Synopsis:   

On 15 June 2022, the County Court of Victoria convicted and fined Avanteos $1.71 million for failing to update defective disclosure statements, which the Court described as a very serious failure of corporate governance.

The matter was prosecuted by the CDPP after an investigation and referral by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

The case attracted widespread media interest when it was revealed the former Commonwealth Bank (CBA) subsidiary was not only charging adviser service fees to almost 500 dead superannuation members, but also failed to reveal this practice in its defective disclosure statements.

It was the first matter prosecuted by the CDPP for an offence contrary to s1021J of the Corporations Act.

Key points: 

Section 1021J of the Corporations Act makes it an offence for a company to fail to rectify or prevent further distribution of disclosure statements, upon becoming aware that the statements are defective. 

At the time of offending, Avanteos was a subsidiary of the CBA under the bank’s wealth management arm, Colonial First State, and a trustee of superannuation funds. It issued superannuation products, which were offered and sold to retail customers via their financial advisers.  

As trustee of superannuation funds, Avanteos deducted various fees from its members’ cash accounts. One such fee was an “adviser service fee,” which was paid to a member’s financial adviser for advice provided in relation to the superannuation product.  

Avanteos’ practice was to continue deducting adviser service fees from its members’ accounts, even after it had been notified that the member had died. It would only stop deducting those fees if it received an instruction from the members’ estate to cease the payment.  

Avanteos did not disclose this practice to its members through its product disclosure statements for 18 of its superannuation products.

On 6 January 2016, Avanteos’ senior management became aware that its statements were defective because they: 

  • did not contain relevant information regarding the deduction of adviser services fees, and  
  • contained a positive implied representation that Avanteos would not deduct those fees after death.  

Between 6 January 2016 and 1 May 2018, Avanteos continued to deduct adviser service fees after the death of members. It did not take any steps to ensure that a direction was provided as soon as practicable to prevent further distribution of the defective disclosure statements, such failure being an offence committed under s1021J for each of the 18 affected superannuation products.

Over that time, a total of 499 dead members were charged almost $700,000 in fees by Avanteos, which traded as Colonial First State Custom Solutions. It has since refunded the fees to members’ estates or beneficiaries.

Sentencing:

Avanteos was convicted and fined $95,000 for each of the 18 charges under s1021J, amounting to a total penalty of $1.71 million. The company received a discounted penalty due to an early guilty plea. The maximum available fine was $3.24 million.

In sentencing, Judge Wraight noted the seriousness of Avanteos’ disclosure failures:

The offending can only be described as a very serious failure of corporate governance and an example of a financial corporation putting its own interests above those of its investors in breach of the law. It is therefore, in all the circumstances in my view a serious example of corporate offending and the company’s culpability is relatively high.” 

However, His Honour also had regard to the following mitigating factors: 

•    The plea of guilty was at the earliest opportunity  
•    Avanteos demonstrated contrition via remediation of its members’ estates
•    The company cooperated with ASIC during its investigation 
•    There were positive prospects of rehabilitation, and 
•    The company committed to pay ASIC the costs of its investigation, being approximately $1.3 million

Relevant links: 

Sentencing remarks