The Federal Court has penalised Westpac a total of $113 million after last week wrapping up six separate civil proceedings filed in November over issues related to general insurance and other financial services.

Justice Jonathan Beach handed down a $15 million penalty over the distribution of duplicate general insurance policies and imposed a $40 million penalty for advice fees charged to deceased customers. Other penalties related to insurance in super, interest rates on debt on-sold, deregistered company accounts and fee disclosure.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says Justice Beach noted that systems and compliance failures were a common feature across all six matters and the misconduct was considered serious.

“The breaches found by the court in these six cases demonstrate a profound failure by Westpac over many years and across many areas of its business to implement appropriate systems and processes to ensure its customers were treated fairly,” ASIC Deputy Chairman Sarah Court said.

“Consumer harm caused by systems failures is unacceptable. Financial institutions must invest in systems that allow them to meet their obligations to customers.”

ASIC and Westpac had submitted agreed proposed penalties for each of the proceedings announced last year, subject to the court’s approval.

Westpac said at that time that the company had fallen short of standards, it was “putting things right” and unreservedly apologised to its customers.