The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited, in the matter of The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited

The case involved The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited (CMLA) and AIA Australia Limited (AIAA), who sought a transfer of life insurance business from CMLA to AIAA. The applicants were also seeking partial dispensation from the requirement to distribute an approved summary of the scheme to policy owners under section 191(2)(c) of the Life Insurance Act 1995 (Cth). The matter was heard in the Federal Court of Australia.

The legal issues before the Court were whether the Court should grant partial dispensation from the requirement to distribute an approved summary of the scheme to policy owners, and if so, under what conditions. The Court needed to consider the policy underlying the requirement and the factors that it should take into account in exercising its discretion.

The Court found that it was not necessary to comply with section 191(2)(c) of the Life Insurance Act in relation to the scheme, given the evidence that the policy owners would not be detrimentally affected by the scheme, the absence of material changes to policy terms and conditions, and APRA's satisfaction with the proposed orders. The Court was satisfied that the applicants would take other steps to bring the scheme to the attention of policy owners, which would likely lead to notification of a very large number of affected policy owners and bring forth any objection to the scheme based on viable objective grounds.

The Court made orders dispensing with the need to comply with section 191(2)(c) of the Life Insurance Act in relation to the scheme, on the condition that the applicants carry out certain steps to publicise the scheme, including publishing notices, making documents available on dedicated webpages, establishing dedicated email addresses and a contact centre, and providing copies of documents to policy owners and other interested parties on request. The Court also fixed the confirmation hearing for 8 March 2021 and ordered the applicants to pay the costs of the proceedings of APRA.