ASIC

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has filed its first action alleging breach of obligations in designing and selling financial products, accusing online investment platform eToro of inappropriately exposing clients to high risk CFDs.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has told a trial judge that superannuation trustee Diversa can’t hide behind outsourcing arrangements to explain its alleged failures to oversee a now-banned financial adviser accused of luring vulnerable customers into signing up to Diversa accounts.

An investment manager has been arrested and charged with providing prospective investors with forged portfolio reports.

The former director of Select AFSL has appealed a judge’s decision to slap him with a $100,000 penalty and a disqualification order after finding he “turned a blind eye” to the life insurer’s unconscionable phone sales tactics.

ASIC is calling for disqualification orders and penalties against property guru Sasha Hopkins, alleging he hawked real estate investment opportunities on social media that raised over $32 million without a licence. 

ASIC has brought enforcement action against Vanguard Investments Australia, accusing the investment firm of misleading claims that its ethically conscious hedge fund screened securities for their environmental, social and good governance bona fides.

The corporate watchdog has cancelled the AFS licence of FTX Australia, the Australian subsidiary of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

ASIC has won orders declaring that Gold Coast-based BHF Solutions and Cigno needed a credit licence to issue loans to hundreds of thousands of customers, after the High Court tossed a challenge by the payday lenders.            

Retail broker Openmarkets has paid the largest ever penalty handed down by ASIC’s markets disciplinary panel, with the regulator also banning its former trading head for three years.

Select AFSL, its related entities and its director have been slapped with $13.6 million in penalties after a judge found that the life insurer used unconscionable phone sales tactics to “wear down” often vulnerable consumers, including migrants and Indigenous communities.