Former GIO CFO Geoffrey Vines has been reinstated as a “fit and proper person” by the NSW Court of Appeal – but he’s also been ordered pay a pecuniary penalty of $50,000 for his conduct during the takeover bid by AMP for GIO in late 1998.

Last year the court ordered Mr Vines be disqualified from managing a corporation for three years and pay a $100,000 pecuniary penalty.

On Friday the Court of Appeal held that, given the seriousness of the contraventions and Mr Vines’ partially successful appeal in April this year, a $50,000 pecuniary penalty was appropriate.

But the court also held that Mr Vines is a fit and proper person to manage a corporation and therefore, under the law that applied at the time, it declined to disqualify him. The disqualification order was set aside.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission was ordered to pay Mr Vines’ appeal costs.