AustralianSuper’s board and former chief executive Ian Silk knew for years that the $365 billion fund was not paying out millions of dollars in claims to families of dead members in a timely manner, yet did not move quickly enough to stop the failures from recurring, the corporate regulator has alleged.

As Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Joe Longo called the compulsory retirement savings sector the “poster child” for governance failures, the watchdog on Wednesday took the country’s largest superannuation fund to court for repeated failures on death benefit claims.