ASIC

Companies in the steel empire of billionaire Sanjeev Gupta have been ordered to lodge outstanding annual financial reports after the corporate regulator brought court action.

A former director of three construction companies that collapsed with debts of almost $94 million has been banned by the corporate watchdog from managing corporations for five years.

ASIC has won travel bans against two people who are being investigated over their links to Keystone and Falcon Capital funds, which are suspected of misusing investor money, after the regulator claimed losses could be “catastrophic”. 

ASIC has opposed a bid by online investment platform eToro to rely on late expert evidence in the regulator’s first-ever action alleging breach of obligations in designing and selling financial products over high-risk contracts for difference.

Administrator appointments for construction companies leaped 20 per cent in the latest financial year, according to data released by the corporate regulator.  

A former director of collapsed Melbourne derivatives broker Berndale Capital Securities will spend a year in jail after pleading guilty to offences connected to his misuse of company funds.

The former chairman of BBY has been charged with aiding and abetting dishonest conduct while head of the board at the defunct stockbroking firm.

A judge has criticised Mayfair Group’s “directing mind” James Mawhinney in a do-over of ASIC’s case over notes tied to Mission Beach properties, saying “vociferous and continuous efforts” to blame others, including lawyers, for investor losses did not reflect well on him.

Funeral insurer ACBF has been hit with a $3.5 million penalty for “callous” and “egregious” misrepresentations to Indigenous customers that its business was Aboriginal owned or managed.

A Grant Thornton partner has been admonished for failing to properly review the firm's audit of the 2018 financial statements of delisted fintech iSignthis, in a promising turn for a recently filed class action.