Former Westpac bankers could be sued over laundering scandal
Former Westpac executives who left the bank with huge payouts years ago, could be made to back millions of dollars in the wake of the bombshell laundering scandal. This is why.
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Cashed up former Westpac bankers could be sued to claw back millions of dollars in pay if they are found to be responsible for lapses leading to the lender’s money laundering scandal.
Facing furious shareholders at the bank’s annual meeting, outgoing chair Lindsay Maxsted flagged the radical possibility of moving to “sue former employees” if it was unable to claw back big pay cheques via other means.
Mr Maxsted’s comments come after Westpac late last month faced a statement of claim from the money laundering cop AUSTRAC which alleges the bank breached anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws.
It included claims Westpac allowed transactions that could have enabled child exploitation in the Philippines. Some of these breaches go back as far as 2013.
The scandal has already claimed the scalp of chief Brian Hartzer — who still left with a $2.7m payment — and Mr Maxsted who has resigned and will leave next year.
At this morning’s annual meeting in Sydney, Mr Maxsted said an investigation by financial crime experts Promontory would look back at mistakes made.
He pointed out the bank could claw back some pay going back as far as seven years.
If people were found to be responsible outside that time period there was the option of taking them to court, Mr Maxsted said. “But we won’t prejudge,” Mr Maxsted said.
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More broadly, Mr Maxsted apologised to shareholders for the breaches this morning.
“Westpac absolutely accepts responsibility for this mistake,” he said.
“Your board is deeply distressed about the issues raised by Austrac in its statement of claim.”
“As a board and as individuals, we are devastated that anyone may have been exposed to the risk of harm as a result of a failing by Westpac.”
“For this, we are truly sorry.”