When you give your hard-earned money to a superannuation fund, you have the right to assume they will do the best possible job of managing those savings for your retirement.
In 2018, the royal commission into banking revealed unacceptable behaviour from big bank-owned super funds including boosting their revenues by ripping customers off with uncompetitive interest rates on their cash investments.
We have commenced the first in a wave of class actions to help get victims of 'super cash rip-offs' their money back. Our class action against the Commonwealth Bank and its Colonial First State superannuation fund alleges that the fund breached the trust of its members by investing their retirement savings with its parent bank - despite the fact they didn't offer the best interest rates.
What you need to know about the Colonial First State class action
The first in our wave of superannuation class actions is for Colonial First State members who had their funds invested with the Commonwealth Bank. These members can be divided into the following three categories.
First, the class action covers current and former members of the following Colonial First State products:
- FirstChoice Personal Super
- FirstChoice Pension
- FirstChoice Wholesale Personal Super
- FirstChoice Wholesale Pension
- FirstChoice Employer Super
who invested in any of the following investment options:
- FirstRate Saver
- FirstRate Wholesale Saver
- FirstRate Saver Select
- FirstRate Wholesale TTR Saver
- FirstRate Term Deposits
- FirstRate Wholesale Term Deposits
Second, the class action covers current and former members of Commonwealth Essential Super who invested in the Cash Deposit, Balanced or Lifestage investment options.
On 2 June 2020, the class action was expanded to also cover, thirdly, anyone who was, at any time since 8 June 2009, a member of the Avanteos Superannuation Trust. Membership of the trust was marketed through a number of superannuation products, including:
- FirstWrap Super and Pension
- FirstWrap Plus Super and Pension
- Investment Exchange Retirement Service
- Momentum Super and Pension
- Northhaven Super Wrap
- Vantage Portfolio Solutions Super and Pension
- encircle Superannuation Service
- Beacon Super and Pension
- Omniport Superannuation & Pension Service
- Commonwealth Private Super and Pension Service
If you were a member of any of these products, you were also member of the Avanteos Superannuation Trust.
Other class actions
Slater and Gordon has now launched five class actions as part of our Get Your Super Back campaign. We have class actions against AMP, BT and ANZ OnePath, and two against Colonial First State. We plan to launch more class actions against big bank-owned super funds that we allege have rorted the system to boost their own profits instead of looking after their members.
If you think you’ve been ripped off, make sure you check out our Get Your Super Back home page for more updates.
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