A high-level court case against the Australia-listed lender has concluded, with the bank forced to pay a A$400,000 ($305,450) penalty.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales has found that Macquarie Investment Management contravened the Australian Corporations Act by failing to comply with its duties as a responsible entity of the van Eyk Blueprint International Shares Fund.    

The court made declarations of contravention and ordered Macquarie to pay a civil pecuniary penalty of A$400,000 ($305,450), as well as A$200,000 for legal costs incurred by the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

ASIC, seeking civil penalties, issued a writ against Macquarie Investment Management in June. Macquarie admitted to the contraventions and the parties signed a "statement of agreed facts" and made joint submissions about the appropriate penalty.

The court found that Macquarie Investment Management failed to comply with its duties as a responsible entity by: failing to exercise the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise if they were in Macquarie's position with respect to three investments totalling $30 million into Cayman Islands-based fund Artefact Partners Global Opportunities Fund (Artefact), between July and October 2012; allowing members to redeem or withdraw units from the VBI Fund when it was illiquid in contravention of the Corporations Act between June and September 2013; and failing to make adequate and timely enquiries in relation to van Eyk’s monitoring of the VBI Fund’s investment in Artefact between 18 February 2013 and 21 July 2014 (including not making adequate and timely enquiries as to why a full redemption from Artefact had not been paid between 1 January 2014 to 21 July 2014).

The commission, for its part, thinks that this judgment confirms the importance of responsible entities monitoring and supervising funds, even when external managers have been appointed.

Meanwhile, ASIC has banned former Macquarie advisor Anthony Jason Sourris from providing financial services for two-and-a-half years. He was employed as a private client advisor in the Brisbane office between 2008 and 2013. An ASIC investigation found that he was involved in February 2013 in the creation of a falsely signed and back-dated client authority form, and lied to Macquarie about the validity of this document, and that he advised eight clients between September 2011 and November 2012 to open options accounts to allow them to trade in exchange traded options, while failing to determine that this advice was appropriate for these clients and to provide them with a statement of advice before advising them. He had a business relationship with Sarah Gardner, a colleague of his, in which he provided investment advice to clients and she provided strategic and financial planning advice. ASIC has also banned Gardner from providing financial services for one year; she, too, was involved in the production of the fraudulent document and lied to ASIC about it.

This latest action is a result of ASIC's Wealth Management Project, which it established in October 2014 to lift standards at major financial advice providers. It is not yet known whether any of the parties are going to appeal against ASIC's decisions to ban them.