The Federal Court imposed an agreed penalty of $7,125,000 on AUFM for 328 contraventions of s 994E(3) of the Corporations Act, arising from failures to require completion of target market questionnaires (89 occasions) and failures to review completed questionnaires (239 occasions) over a two-year period following commencement of the DDO regime. The Court held that the newness of the DDO regime was only of limited mitigatory significance given the substantial lead time before commencement, and that the failure to ensure an appropriately qualified person was tasked with DDO implementation reflected poorly on AUFM's compliance culture. The Court accepted a remediation plan involving third-party financial advice funded by AUFM for affected investors, and ordered adverse publicity notices on AUFM's website and directly to affected investors.
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