The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has announced that the Federal Court has ordered a $12 million fine against Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd.。

The company was found to have failed to meet its fee disclosure obligations and charged customers fees to which it was not entitled。

Deputy Chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Sarah Court said:

These failures were due in part to Mercer's failure to maintain the necessary systems and processes to ensure timely and accurate disclosure statements to customers。

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wants businesses to invest appropriately in their compliance systems。As today's results show, businesses face significant penalties if they fail to do so。

Mercer was found to have breached the relevant provisions of the Companies Act and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act for a period of three years from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2019 because Mercer

○ Failure to invite more than 800 clients to the annual review meeting, despite their entitlement to attend; ○ Failure to provide fee disclosure statements to more than 500 clients; ○ More than 3,000 non-compliant fee disclosure statements were issued to more than 2,000 clients, and ○ Charges totaling more than $4.7 million were charged to 761 clients who did not receive these services。

The court found that Mercer's failure was due to insufficient systems and processes to ensure that its fee disclosure statements complied with financial services laws.。

Mercer was also found to have breached its obligation to provide financial services efficiently, honestly and fairly.。

In his judgment, Judge McEvoy noted that "the violations in this case are extremely serious.。These violations were huge in number, affected many customers, involved huge sums of money, and went on for a long time.。"

Mercer admitted his wrongdoing。