Commonwealth Bank facing class action through Maurice Blackburn Lawyers and litigation funder IMF Bentham

THE nation’s biggest bank is facing what looms as the ­nation’s biggest class action lawsuit over claims it failed to alert the share market to its alleged breaches of anti-money laundering laws.

Andrew Watsons speaking about the potential legal action against CBA.

THE nation’s biggest bank is facing what looms as the ­nation’s biggest class action lawsuit over claims it failed to alert the share market to its alleged breaches of anti-money laundering laws.

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers and litigation funder IMF Bentham are appealing to eligible retail shareholders of the Commonwealth Bank to join the potential case.

The CBA has copped flak after it was revealed its board did not tell the market in the second half of 2015 that it knew of a coding error with its intelligent deposit machines which caused the breaches.

The matter came to light publicly when the government’s anti money-laundering authority, Austrac, earlier this month launched civil action in the Federal Court, accusing the CBA of “serious and ­systemic” legal breaches ­involving more than 50,000 transactions.

About $10 billion has been stripped from the company’s market value — yesterday sitting at $135.3 billion — since Austrac revealed its action.

While the CBA has about 800,000 retail shareholders, the class action is open to those who purchased ordinary CBA shares between August 17, 2015, and August 3 this year, the date when Austrac launched its action.

“I’d anticipate that we will have very large levels of interest from institutions and retail shareholders,” Maurice Blackburn’s national head of class actions Andrew Watson said.

“The Austrac allegations are extensive and it is astounding that the market would not be advised of such serious and repeated breaches as soon as the company became aware of them.”

Mr Watson said the sharemarket drop over the revelations was one of the greatest in the past five years for the bank.

The CBA said yesterday it was aware of the potential shareholder class action but had not been served with any legal proceedings. “We will keep the market informed of developments,” it said.