Watchdog clears former NAB exec Andrew Hagger over Hayne evidence

Former senior NAB executive Andrew Hagger has been told he faces no action over evidence to the Hayne royal commission.

Former NAB executive Andrew Hagger. Picture: AAP

ASIC has told former senior National Australia Bank executive Andrew Hagger that no action would be taken against him over evidence he gave at the Hayne royal commission.

Mr Hagger left NAB in September 2018, becoming chief executive of iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic Minderoo Foundation as well as its investment arm in March last year.

Unlike former AMP chairman Catherine Brenner, who got her no-action letter from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission on Monday, Mr Hagger is understood to have received similar correspondence from the conduct regulator last December.

The former banker was unavailable for comment.

Royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne recalled Mr Hagger to give evidence to the royal commission a second time over the bank’s fees-for-no-service scandal. The core of the issue was a 2016 telephone conversation between the NAB executive and ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer over the scale of the issue.

The position of senior counsel assisting Michael Hodge was that Mr Hagger had withheld information that NAB would refund $34m to customers instead of half that amount.

While the higher figure would eventually come out, any delay would allegedly have benefited NAB as the inclusion of the smaller amount would have positioned the bank in the middle of the pack in an industry-wide scandal ­instead of an outlier.

Then NAB chief executive ­Andrew Thorburn announced Mr Hagger’s departure in September 2018 from head of the consumer banking and wealth businesses.

Mr Thorburn, who would himself leave NAB in early 2019 after Mr Hayne’s excoriating findings against the bank in his final report, said Mr Hagger felt it was the right time to leave after the bringing ­together of the wealth businesses under the leadership of Geoff Lloyd. Mr Hagger said he took ­accountability for what had ­occurred on his watch.

When Mr Hayne released his final report in February 2019, he said he was not as confident as he would wish to be that the lessons of the past had been learnt.

“I thought it telling that (chairman Dr Ken Henry) seemed unwilling to accept any criticism of how the board had dealt with some issues,” the royal commissioner said.

“I thought it telling that Mr Thorburn treated all issues of fees for no service as nothing more than carelessness combined with system deficiencies when the total amount to be repaid by NAB and (its trustee company NULIS) on this account is likely to be more than $100m.

“Overall, my fear that there may be a wide gap between the public face NAB seeks to show and what it does in practice remains.”