IOOF Limited has declared it will defend it will be legally defending its position in the face of regulatory action initiated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (IOOF) including the disqualification of senior executives including its managing director, Christopher Kelaher.
In a statement released to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in the wake of the APRA action, IOOF said it had received notice from the regulator on Thursday and that it was “disappointed” by the APRA action in circumstances where IOOF had been seeking to work cooperatively with the regulator.
“IOOF is disappointed that APRA seeks to impose licence conditions, commenced the proceedings and issued the show cause notice,” the statement said. “IOOF has been working cooperatively with APRA to actively implement various agreed initiatives, which were most recently outlined at the 2018 Annual General Meeting.”
“The historical matters the subject of the proceedings were disclosed to APRA a number of years ago. IOOF has already addressed or is addressing them, and it has been constructively working with APRA to this end.”
“IOOF will continue to actively progress the agreed initiatives and will further consider the allegations raised by APRA,” it said. “However, IOOF believes that these allegations are misconceived, and it and its executives intend to vigorously defend the proceedings.”
