The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has been successful in its application to the Federal Court of Australia to have two unlicensed financial services organisations in New South Wales wound up.
The companies the corporate regulator will wind up are SA Services & PW Pty Ltd and Orphans Asia Pty Ltd.
ASIC made the application to shut down both organisations after discovering $2.4 million of investors’ funds were obtained by them through operating the now invalid smsfadvisory.com website, as well as cold-calling activity. Further, it was determined SA Services and Orphans Asia had done so without being licensed or having the authority to deal in financial products or provide financial services.
Both companies have passed special resolutions to have the court put a stop to their operations at the request of ASIC.
The regulator’s concerns over SA Services and Orphans Asia came about while it was investigating a company called PW Kitt Co and its director, Larry Dawson, who also held a directorship at Orphans Asia.
In a similar set of circumstances to that of SA Services and Orphans Asia, ASIC found PW Kitt Co had received over $7.4 million from investors, again through cold-calling practices and operating both the smsfadivsory.com and pwkittco.com websites.
Like SA Services and Orphans Asia, it was found PW Kitt Co was unlicensed and had no authority to provide financial services or offer financial products.
ASIC also established smsfadvisory.com and PW Kitt Co were benefiting from the similarity in names to SMSF Advisory Services Pty Ltd and P.W. Kitt & Co, two organisations that were unrelated. Further, it was discovered PW Kitt Co and Dawson were using the Australian financial services licence number of another company.
The regulator has obtained court orders to appoint Michael Hill and Anthony Connelly of McGrathNicol as liquidators for SA Services, Orphans Asia and PW Kitt Co.
Any action against Dawson with regard to the breach of his duties as a company director has been suspended subsequent to the result of NSW Police criminal proceedings against him.
