ASIC Issues Infringement Notice to Tetra Servicing Over Misleading Property Option Disclosure

Key Takeaways

• ASIC has issued a AUD $19,800 infringement notice to Tetra Servicing Pty Ltd (formerly Telstra Super) for publishing a misleading time horizon representation about its Property Option investment product.
• The discrepancy between the website's stated 7-year time horizon and the actual 10-year horizon used internally and disclosed in the Investment Guide constitutes a breach of s12DB(1)(e) of the ASIC Act, highlighting the regulator's continued scrutiny of superannuation trustees' marketing and disclosure accuracy.

Deep Dive

This infringement notice underscores ASIC's ongoing enforcement focus on the accuracy and consistency of disclosure materials across all member-facing channels, including websites, PDS documents, and investment guides. The core issue was not a substantive error in investment strategy, but an inconsistency between two official sources—the Property Option webpage and the Investment Guide—regarding the time horizon used to set and measure return objectives. ASIC treated this inconsistency as misleading conduct because it conveyed a false performance characteristic to members and prospective members, even though the correct figure was disclosed elsewhere.

For compliance teams, this action is a clear signal that regulators expect rigorous cross-referencing and version control across all public-facing disclosure materials. Trustees and product issuers must ensure that website content, marketing collateral, and formal disclosure documents (PDS, Investment Guides, Target Market Determinations) are synchronized and subject to periodic reconciliation reviews. The contravention period spanned eight months (16 July 2025 to 16 March 2026), suggesting the discrepancy went undetected for an extended period, which points to potential gaps in content governance, change management, or periodic audit processes for digital disclosures.

Key timelines to note: the infringement notice was issued 16 July 2026, with a 28-day payment period (or option to apply for extension, instalments, or withdrawal) from the date of issuance. While the penalty amount itself (AUD $19,800) is modest, the notice explicitly references maximum potential penalties of AUD $16.5 Million or greater (based on turnover or benefit-derived calculations) if the matter had proceeded to court, illustrating the scale of exposure for systemic or repeated disclosure failures.

Compliance professionals at superannuation trustees and fund managers should treat this as a prompt to conduct immediate reviews of all investment option disclosures—particularly time horizons, return objectives, and risk metrics—for consistency across digital and print channels. Establishing a centralized disclosure register, implementing mandatory reconciliation checks before publishing updates, and assigning clear ownership for content accuracy will mitigate similar risks. Given ASIC's willingness to pursue infringement notices for what might appear to be administrative discrepancies, this case reinforces that disclosure accuracy is a strict liability-style risk area requiring proactive governance rather than reactive correction.

Source: Australian Securities and Investments Commission