ANZ "well knew that the level of exception fees it charged was well above 'cost recovery'," Federal Court judge Justice Michelle Gordon has concluded. "ANZ operated in a framework where it regarded exception fees as a part of its revenue, which contributed significantly to profit (and, therefore, not merely covering costs arising from exception fee events)," she wrote."ANZ regarded exception fees as arising when accounts were otherwise not 'in order' or being properly managed, or as capable of effecting 'behavioural control' over how customers dealt with accounts. "ANZ wanted to encourage customers to 'avoid' exception fees (because, it should be inferred from the evidence, it did not want customers' accounts to be 'out of order')."ANZ was conscious that the fees were not set at an amount 'limited to cost recovery only' and that ANZ set the level of fees by reference 'to the market'. "The exception fees were set by reference to what other banks were charging, and, by extension, the maximum ANZ thought it could get away with charging, and bore no relation whatsoever to the costs to ANZ of the relevant events giving rise to the exception fees."