National Australia Bank has not yet indicated whether it will defend all or part of a civil action brought against it in the Federal Court yesterday by ASIC over the fee for no service scandal.The regulator alleges in its statement of claim that the bank engaged in unconscionable conduct and committed thousands of breaches of corporations laws by improperly charging ongoing fees to financial advice customers.Details of the scandal were exposed last year when ASIC and the bank furnished evidence on fee for no service issues to the Hayne Royal Commission.The royal commission heard evidence that NAB and other banks admitted that they had improperly levied ongoing service fees on financial advice customers who had died.Given that penalties for each of the alleged contraventions alleged by ASIC range between A$250,000 and $2.1 million, NAB could be facing a bill of more than $3 billion if it decides not to contest the claim.The bank's chief legal and commercial counsel Sharon Cook gave no hint in an ASX filing whether the bank would stump up a defence to any part of the ASIC action."We take this action seriously and will now carefully assess the allegations," she told the ASX."We will continue to work co-operatively and constructively with ASIC to deal with this issue. "We have already acknowledged failures where customers have paid fees for services they didn't receive and have paid $37.8 million to 27,500 NAB FP clients."Remediation began in December 2018 and is expected to be completed by June 2020." While the legal action against NAB is not likely to surprise investors, the allegations of unconscionable conduct are interesting in that they apply to a period starting in May 2018 when the royal commission began receiving evidence from the bank on the fees for no service controversy.ASIC claims that NAB engaged in unconscionable conduct from at least May last year by continuing to charge ongoing service fees to certain customers when it knew that it had not delivered any advice services and had issued defective fee disclosure statements or at least knew that there was a real risk that it had engaged in such conduct.NAB did not stop charging the fees until February this year. ASIC deputy chair Daniel Crennan QC said fee for no service practices had been widespread in the financial advice industry and was now the subject of ongoing enforcement action by the regulator."ASIC views these instances of misconduct as systematic failures, unfair to customers including those that are more vulnerable," he said."When the fees for no service misconduct is coupled with fees disclosure statements' inadequacies or failings, customers are potentially placed in a more disadvantageous position. "The customer may not therefore have been provided with the opportunity to know whether they have received the services for which they have paid or the amount of fees charged to them."In its 2019 full year accounts NAB booked a special $1.1 billion charge, which was to be used partly to cover additional compensation to customers who incurred inappropriate fees from