McVeigh v. Retail Employees Superannuation Trust

The case involved Mark McVeigh, a member of the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST), who alleged that the fund violated the Corporations Act 2001 and the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 by failing to provide information on climate change business risks and lacking a sufficiently developed climate policy. McVeigh argued that a prudent trustee should ensure investment management and risk disclosure comply with Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. The Federal Court of Australia recognized the litigation as being of a "public interest nature" due to the socially significant role of superannuation trusts regarding climate change. The parties reached a settlement on 2 February 2010, where REST acknowledged climate change as a "material, direct and current financial risk" and committed to implementing strategies to manage these risks and pursuing a net-zero carbon footprint by 2050 in line with TCFD.

• The plaintiff, Mark McVeigh, alleged that the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST) violated the Corporations Act 2001 by not providing information that would allow a member to make an informed judgement about the fund's management and financial condition, specifically regarding "knowledge of RESTs climate change business risks" and actions taken to respond to them.
• McVeigh further argued that REST breached its duties under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 by failing to maintain a developed climate change policy and not ensuring that risk disclosure processes were "compliant with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)".
• The Federal Court of Australia determined that the litigation was of a "public interest nature" because it addressed a "socially significant issue about the role of superannuation trusts and trustees in the current public controversy about climate change".
• As part of a settlement reached on 2 February 2010, REST acknowledged that "climate change is a material, direct and current financial risk to the superannuation fund" and committed to developing systems and policies to mitigate these risks.
• Under the settlement agreement, McVeigh supports REST's goal to achieve a "net-zero carbon footprint by 2050", which includes reporting climate progress according to the TCFD and ensuring investee climate disclosure.

APA

Contributor, C. (2022). McVeigh v. Retail Employees Superannuation Trust. ClimaTalk. https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/mcveigh-v-retail-employees-superannuation-trust/

Chicago

Contributor, ClimaTalk. McVeigh v. Retail Employees Superannuation Trust. ClimaTalk, 2022. https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/mcveigh-v-retail-employees-superannuation-trust/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Contributor |first1=ClimaTalk |title=McVeigh v. Retail Employees Superannuation Trust |publisher=ClimaTalk |date=28 May 2022 |url=https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/mcveigh-v-retail-employees-superannuation-trust/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{contributor2022mcveigh, author = {Contributor, ClimaTalk}, title = {{McVeigh v. Retail Employees Superannuation Trust}}, institution = {ClimaTalk}, year = {2022}, month = may, url = {https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/mcveigh-v-retail-employees-superannuation-trust/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }