2001 Media and information releases
01/420c ASIC annual report: ACT
Thursday 29 November 2001
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) ACT office had a busy year protecting consumers and regulating the corporate and financial services sector, according to ASIC's Annual Report for the year 2000/2001 tabled in Federal Parliament yesterday.
Regional Commissioner Ron Ladlay said that the ACT office had focused its efforts on enforcing the law and protecting investors and consumers of financial services.
The ACT office commenced 13 investigations during the financial year. Four criminal prosecutions were commenced during the year and ASIC took civil proceedings in relation to four other investigations.
ACT enforcement action
On 11 September 2000 John Andrew McPhee of Culcairn, a former director of McPhee Meat Packing Pty Ltd, was sentenced to four years and six months jail, to serve a minimum of two years and three months after pleading guilty to one charge of theft involving $250,324 and another charge of making false accounting records involving company funds of $643,613.
Criminal proceedings were also commenced against Marshall Cobb, a Canberra-based company director of Tax Invest Australia Pty Limited (in liquidation) for his involvement in the promotion of the failed Queensland-based Wattle Group investment scheme.
Mr John Roden, former president of the Real Estate Institute of the ACT, was given a suspended prison sentence after ASIC brought charges against him for failing to act honestly as a director of the company Roden Holdings Pty Limited.
ASIC commenced civil penalty proceedings against the directors of CTC resources NL and related companies Kamaga Holdings Pty Ltd and Bisoya Pty Ltd.
Charges were laid against David Charles Dulhunty for registering a company using a false name. It is alleged that Mr Dulhunty lodged the false documents with ASIC to facilitate a GST fraud. This matter was coordinated with a GST fraud investigation conducted by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Taxation Office which saw Mr Dulhunty charged with Commonwealth offences in relation to the defrauding of $515,000.
Investor protection
ASIC was active during the year to ensure that investors were protected from financial advisers and other people not acting in the best interests of consumers.
Maxwell Vardanega, a former investment adviser and former managing director of Australian Investment Advisers Ltd, was banned for life in August 2000 from acting as an investment adviser after being sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court to a suspended five year jail term and 52 weeks of periodic detention after pleading guilty to ASIC charges of obtaining a $1.4 million financial advantage by deception.
In April this year, ASIC banned former Canberra investment adviser Warren Aitken for life. ASIC found that Mr Aitken had transferred client's superannuation funds without their authority.
Fundraising
The ACT Office placed interim stop orders on six prospectuses, with three proceeding to final orders when the promoters of the prospectuses could not lodge satisfactory additional disclosures with ASIC.
The stop orders were part of a campaign by ASIC against misleading financial projections in prospectuses.
In May this year, a Fijian based company, Asia Pacific Resources Limited and its Canberra based director, Matthew Huggan provided ASIC with an enforceable undertaking to withdraw a share offer in the Fijian company after ASIC's concerns that the offer document was misleading or deceptive. The document purported that exploration licences had been issued to the company when in fact they were still being processed by the Fijian government.
In June this year Cooma company SMEC Holdings Limited gave ASIC an enforceable undertaking after failing to lodge its half-yearly accounts since 1996 and not having appropriate procedures in place to ensure compliance with its disclosure obligations under the law.
The ACT office also took part in an ASIC nationwide surveillance campaign on license holders under the Managed Investments Act. The surveillances concentrated on the licensee's compliance systems and resulted in a wide range of remedial actions including the variation of license conditions.
Regional Commissioner Ron Ladlay said the results for the year demonstrated ASIC's commitment to a strong regulatory presence in both enforcement and consumer protection areas.
‘Our activity over the 2000/2001 year sends a clear message that ASIC will be vigilant in continuing to protect consumers and investors. Investors however need to be wary of certain investments particularly those that offer a higher return than other investments available in the market – as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’, Mr Ladlay said.
For further information contact:
Ron Ladlay
Regional Commissioner
Telephone: 02 6250 3887
Mobile: 0411 549 136 |
_
Felicity Glennie-Holmes
ASIC Media Unit
Telephone: 02 9911 2600
Mobile: 0412 673 038
|
End of release
ASIC Website: Printed 07/31/2010
