Royal Commission: Banks Face Scrutiny Over Evidence – What Happens If They Fail to Cooperate?

At the first round of hearings of the Financial Services Royal Commission, the counsel assisting, Rowena Orr QC, was unimpressed with the material some of the banks have provided. The Commonwealth Bank provided two submissions, the first of which, according to Orr:

The CBA’s second submission was no more helpful: it consisted primarily of a large number of spreadsheets. Orr said these were “not in a form which made it possible to easily understand the type and the scale”, of CBA’s conduct.

Each bank stores its documents in a system that suits the bank’s operational needs, and is unlikely to align with the Royal Commission’s priorities. A request to collate all documents on a given topic might take the bank many hours of searching and analysis across multiple databases. The banks then may have to return to the Royal Commission to clarify what is required.

There’s nothing to stop the Royal Commission using both coercive and cooperative techniques. It may, for example, ask banks to provide an overview of the handling of certain complaints, and then require the banks to produce certain documents mentioned in that summary.

But a combination of asking and demanding may be needed to get the information the Royal Commission needs.