The class action against ANZ over penalty fees may take more than a year to progress beyond preliminary stages. The bank told a Federal Court hearing yesterday that it may take an accounting team this long to work out which costs justify its fees.
At a directions hearings the bank's expert - Will Inglis, a UK-based partner in the accounting firm Deloitte - told the hearing his team needed at least 13 months to undertake the work.
Inglis told the court it was a complex task and that ANZ had not previously looked into the level of granularity on costs required by the case.
Michael Lee, lawyer for Maurice Blackburn, told the court the plaintiff would consider dropping a claim against ANZ for unconscionable conduct if the bank could produce the work it must have done to support a claim that the fees were not extravagant and unconscionable, he said.
That would leave the plaintiffs with a claim that the fees charged are, or were, out of proportion to the damage experienced by the bank.
Banks, including ANZ, have reduced or eliminated many penalty fees even before the class action got underway, with National Australia Bank at the forefront of this shift in approach.
The judge, Ray Finklestein, urged the bank to look for a faster and more approximate manner of producing the data required.
Maurice Blackburn has bought the class action on behalf of 30,000 customers. IMF (Australia) is helping to fund the action.
It is now nine months since IMF and Maurice Blackburn began publicising a series of class actions against many banks over penalty fees. The case against ANZ is the only one yet filed with the court.
The Sydney Morning Herald and
The Australian reported on the case today.