The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has fined Regional Express Holdings $66,000 after finding there were reasonable grounds to believe the airline violated it continuous disclosure obligations by telling a journalist, but not shareholders, about its potential plans to launch domestic operations.
The former chief financial officer of delisted Traditional Therapy Clinics has been sentenced to one year and ten months in prison after pleading guilty to market manipulation charges relating to transactions intended to create an artificial share price for the traditional therapy clinic company.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has launched court proceedings seeking to wind up investment manager PE Capital Funds Management, whose trustee Endeavour Securities has connections to collapsed financial services company Linchpin Capital, as well as four of its unregistered managed investment schemes.
A judge has denied ASIC’s request that the court hear its case against RI Advice in November, giving the IOOF unit more time to respond to the 800-page expert report filed by the regulator in support of its case that the company lacked adequate cybersecurity systems.
A Worrells liquidator facing ASIC proceedings seeking to have his registration cancelled has won costs from the regulator after a judge found he was entitled to a “coherent pleading” and ordered the regulator to file a statement of claim.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has banned the former managing director of collapsed financial services provider Theta Asset Management from providing financial services for four years, after a court hit the company with a $2 million penalty for issuing defective product disclosure statements for a property investment scheme targeting retirees.
Several banks and executives facing criminal cartel charges over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement have won access to interview notes taken by whistleblower JP Morgan prior to it being granted immunity, which the banks say will prove inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.
A judge has granted OTC trader EuropeFX more time to file its defence to an 80-page statement of claim and over 2,000 pages of particulars filed by ASIC in its case accusing the company of knowingly exposing its Chinese customers to criminal charges.
The federal government has cut the budget for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission by $62.7 million in tandem with the regulator’s corporate registry being shifted to the ATO, but a legal expert told Lawyerly the cut could also signal a movement away from the “why not litigate” approach adopted in the wake of the banking royal commission.
ASIC has taken a leaf out of the playbook of Australia’s courts in granting litigation funders temporary relief from having to disclose certain sensitive financial information in their product disclosure statements.