The full bench of the Federal Court yesterday ruled in favour of Capricornia Credit Union and against ASIC and Mackay Permanent Building Society in a long running dispute over access to the member register of a mutual entity.The full court overturned two of the purposes proposed by Mackay and endorsed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for Mackay to obtain access to the register of Queensland credit union.The court upheld three other purposes approved by ASIC, but raised concerns about the impact of one of these purposes on the operations of the credit union. The background to this wrangle is that in June 2004, the directors of Capricornia Credit Union spurned an offer from Mackay Permanent to buy the credit union from its members. Mackay is listed on the ASX, while Capricornia, like all credit unions, is a mutual. Capricornia is based in the city of Rockhampton, hundreds of kilometres to the south of Mackay on the central Queensland coast.Mackay made no public announcement of its offer at the time, while Capricornia's board turned the offer down without referring it to its members.Mackay withdrew the offer in October 2004, and Capricornia appears to have thought at the time that Mackay lost interest. But in March 2005 the ASIC ordered Capricornia to supply its membership list to Mackay so that Mackay could put the offer directly to the members of the credit union.Somewhat ironically Mackay and Capricornia agreed there was no offer at the time the argument over access to the member register first reached the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.In December 2005 the AAT ruled in favour of Mackay and ASIC. The Federal Court heard Capricornia's appeal in August 2006 and, 10 months later, published its ruling.