ANZ loses

The Post reports:

ANZ says it has lost the class action lawsuit over disclosure mistakes it made on 17,000 home loans, and may have to repay borrowers up to $125 million.

In a statement, ANZ chief executive Antonia Watson said the bank was disappointed with the court’s findings and might appeal.

The High Court has awarded summary judgment against ANZ for failures under lending laws designed to ensure borrowers understood their loan contacts and obligations.

The law that applies at the time was not a good law. The penalty of losing all fees was disproportional to the error they made. It is good the law has changed. However the law is the law, and trying to get Parliament to retrospectively amend the law to undermine a valid lawsuit was the wrong thing to do.

It is worth noting their maximum exposure has now been revealed to be only $125 million. The banking lobby tried to (and almost succeeded) in scaring MPs into a retrospective law change by claiming banks could be up for $12.9 billion, which would risk the financial stability. This can now be seen to be nonsense.