Cbus is conducting an investigation into allegations printed in the Australian Financial Review that member details were secretly passed to a union boss at CFMEU who used them in a dispute with building firm Lis-Con.

The allegations state a source at Cbus passed on details of members who were working at Lis-Con – not all of whom were union members – enabling CFMEU to contact these members and agitate for more pressure to be put on senior management over worker entitlements.

The AFR has framed the allegations in the context of government concerns at undue union influence at industry superannuation funds.

A Cbus spokesperson said: “These allegations our pretty new to us, but we assure our members that we are looking into it. We will have more to say once we have exhausted the investigation.”

In a separate statement the fund added that “any disclosure made or used for purposes other than this would be of serious concern to Cbus.”

It said the only time it would disclose members’ personal information to sponsoring organisations was to ensure the payment of fund members’ superannuation entitlements.

In a twist to the statement, the fund revealed that Lis-Con is the subject of action by Cbus due to “alleged non-payment of employees’ super entitlements”.