“We say this material shows the real world in which people were properly approaching this issue. And in our respectful submission, the case of the applicant is wholly infected by hindsight bias that we were sued, a claim was made and a penalty was agreed on, which your Honour approved,” Hutley said.

Hutley also hit back at the plaintiffs’ interpretation of emails between Comyn and Narev from September 2015, in which they discussed concerns about the possibility cash deposits had not been reported to Austrac. This was almost two years before the Austrac lawsuit was lodged and CBA announced the issue to the ASX.

Narev and Comyn both referred to a need to manage “stakeholders” in 2015, and Stoljar on Monday argued the term stakeholders included investors. Hutley said this was “simply wrong,” and the plaintiffs could put the issue to Narev directly.

Stoljar on Monday argued the emails showed senior CBA executives regarded the issue as “extremely serious,” referring to a 2015 email to Narev from Comyn (who ran CBA’s retail bank at the time), which said: “I’ve also put a rocket up a few people because there are still some details that we need before we can accurately update stakeholders with the facts.”

Hutley on Wednesday pointed to Narev’s reply, which said: “All good. No need for rockets. Just keen to make sure we are in front of the issue, not behind it.”