Tyndall gets compliance back on track

Tyndall has turned around its compliance process in the wake of an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investment Commissions (ASIC) prompted by the discovery of erroneous unit prices.

The Royal & SunAlliance owned funds management group ran into trouble last September when it discovered that it had made unit pricing errors in the period December 1999 to September 2000.

Royal & SunAlliance financial services chief executive Dennis Fox says $50,000 in compensation was paid out within one to three months of the discovery of the errors to affected investors.

ASIC's gripe was that there were compliance deficiencies in Tyndall's handling of the unit pricing errors as well as inadequate controls and reporting systems relating to the operating of the schemes.

Fox says Tyndall accepts ASIC's charges, but points out that it was Tyndall who discovered the errors, which might not be otherwise clear in ASIC's statement.

"It's true, we didn't hold compliance meetings in the second half of 1999, as Tyndall and Royal & SunAlliance were at that time engaged in merging operations," he says.

But he also says the Tyndall Board was informed of the errors at the time of the discovery, but not in writing, which ASIC has highlighted as a compliance error.

"We are holding quarterly compliance meetings again," Fox says. "We have also appointed PriceWaterhouseCoopers as independent consultants on our compliance process as part of our enforced undertaking."