ASIC

A Senate committee has release a damning report blasting the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a failed regulator that should be broken up.

The Australian provider of the Kraken crypto exchange has told a court that its margin trading product is not a credit facility, rejecting the corporate regulator’s “overly broad” definition of the word ‘credit’. 

Defunct microloan company Ferratum has been hit with $16 million in penalties for overcharging low-income consumers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a judge noting the company’s conduct affected a large number of vulnerable customers.

A judge has expressed concern about the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s suspicion that a former director of Keystone Asset Management may have used investor funds to purchase a house in his wife’s name, calling it “alarming”.

A court has found iSignthis and its former CEO Nickolas John Karantzis breached the Corporations Act in disclosures to the stock market about one-off revenue and the termination of the fintech’s business arrangement with Visa.

ASIC has secured freezing orders over the assets of an investment fund managed by Keystone Asset Management, with a court also ordering a Keystone director to surrender his passport amid an investigation by the corporate regulator. 

ASIC has wasted no time in appealing a judge’s decision to excuse cryptocurrency product provider Block Earner from paying a civil penalty on the basis that it took advice from a leading law firm that was not seen by the court. 

Trial in ASIC’s action accusing former Dixon Advisory director Paul Ryan of breaching his duties began Monday, a case that puts the spotlight on legal advice over a deed that affected the wealth management firm’s capacity to recoup a $19 million debt on the eve of its collapse.

A director of two Paladin Group units is entitled to rely on the privilege against self-exposure to penalty in defending a case brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, a court has heard.

Payday lenders Cigno and BSF Solutions have appealed a decision that found they provided credit without a licence, and rejected the claim that their loan model is analogous to buy now, pay later arrangements that don’t require a licence.