Decision on chair Catherine Brenner at wealth-management giant possible this weekend

AMP’s chair, Catherine Brenner, could be ousted by the end of the weekend, if a rumoured phone hook-up of directors takes place Sunday.

AMP may oust chair Catherine Brenner by the end of the weekend after the financial services royal commission heard the wealth-management group could face criminal charges.

Speculation was rife on Friday night Ms Brenner was poised to be banished from the board.

According to rumours sweeping the market, AMP directors have scheduled a phone hook-up Sunday to discuss their next steps in the wake of the damning revelations at the royal commission.

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It comes after AMP chief Craig Meller was pushed out last week.

Heaping pressure on the group, it emerged late on Friday that pension fund First Super would vote against the re-election of three AMP directors at its upcoming annual meeting due to claims aired at the commission.

“We call on other superannuation funds, fund managers and proxy advisers to follow the lead of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and send a message to the industry that the types of practices perpetrated by AMP and recently uncovered by the royal commission are unacceptable,” First Super chief Bill Watson said.

Counsel ­assisting the royal commission Rowena Orr, QC, on Friday told commissioner Kenneth Hayne he could find AMP beached sections of the Corporations Act carrying criminal penalties.

She reiterated AMP had made “false or misleading statements” to the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as it investigated the scandal in which the company charged clients for services it was not providing.

Ms Orr said senior AMP ­figures had manipulated a report that was presented to ASIC as independent.

AMP chief Craig Meller was removed a week ago.

Ms Brenner, Mr Meller, group general counsel Brian Salter and head of advice Anthony “Jack” Regan “either marked up or suggested amendments” to the draft report prepared by law firm Clayton Utz, she said.

After falling for a 10th day in succession, shares in AMP hit a six-year low of $4.02 — down 0.7 per cent for the day — on the revelations. More than $2 billion has been wiped from the group’s market value over the past two weeks.

Ms Orr made the comments in her closing statement to end the second round of public hearings. Mr Hayne could also find the big banks breached a series of civil laws over incidents involving unscrupulous financial planners, she said.

The Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank could all be guilty of breaching the Corporations Act in their treatment of customers, Ms Orr said.

She noted Commonwealth Financial Planning, an arm of the CBA, charged customers fees for which they provided no service.

Ms Orr said this was “attributable to remuneration practices” and a more general “cultural tolerance on the part of CBA and its advice licensees of risks and conduct that were potentially detrimental to clients but which were to the financial advantage of CBA through its advice licensees”.

At the same time, Melbourne-based ANZ was also in the firing line, with Ms Orr saying there were possible breaches of the law by its subsidiaries Millenium3 and RI Advice Group.

National Australia Bank had also potentially breached the Act for a practice in which planners falsely claimed to have witnessed signatures from customers.

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