Australian Unity Funds Management Limited (AUFM) acknowledges the Federal Court of Australia’s decision in the civil penalty proceedings issued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) against AUFM, the responsible entity of the Australian Unity Select Income Fund (SIF).

The proceedings related to AUFM’s past non-compliance with the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) design and distribution obligations (DDO) during the period from 5 October 2021 (when the DDO came into effect) to 5 October 2023.

Consistent with admissions made by AUFM, the Court found AUFM contravened the legislation by failing to take reasonable steps to ensure that its retail product distribution conduct was consistent with the applicable Target Market Determinations (TMDs).

This involved flaws in the process for requiring and reviewing completed questionnaires used for determining whether investors fell within the target market set out in the TMDs.

The Court imposed a pecuniary penalty of $7.125 million, as jointly proposed by AUFM and ASIC. As remediation, AUFM will enable qualifying affected SIF investors to access free financial advice from a third-party financial adviser in connection with the redeployment of their SIF investments. AUFM will also publish a written adverse publicity notice in accordance with a Court order.

AUFM acknowledges the seriousness of the contraventions and has contacted the 233 affected investors.

The proceedings and AUFM’s admissions followed AUFM originally self-reporting these matters to ASIC in September and October 2023. AUFM cooperated with ASIC throughout the subsequent investigation and the proceedings.

Since identifying these issues, AUFM has taken significant steps to uplift its compliance in this area, including in continuing to review and improve its product governance framework, and conducting investor screening.

The proceedings did not relate to SIF’s investment performance, nor the integrity of SIF or any of the Australian Unity Group’s other investment products or services.

Australian Unity treats all regulatory matters with the utmost seriousness and remains committed to transparency and compliance.

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Media contact

T: 1300 408 776
E: media@australianunity.com.au

About Australian Unity

Established in 1840, Australian Unity is a member-owned wellbeing company with more than 370,000 members and more than 700,000 customers. 
Our range of health, wealth and care products and services provides member, customer and community value that is supportive of personal and community wellbeing.