The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has cancelled the Australian financial services licence of a Perth-based financial services group linked to Mayfair 101, and banned its director, after finding it failed to comply with its obligations as a licensee.
The corporate regulator cancelled the licence of Quattro Capital Group, which was the licensee of a number of authorised representatives, some of whom were part of the Mayfair 101 Group and issued debentures promoted by Mayfair 101.
ASIC also banned the sole director of Quattro and its responsible manager, Grant Stewart Gibson, from controlling a financial services entity for eight years.
The actions are the result of ASIC finding that Quattro failed to maintain the competence to provide financial services and failed to properly supervise its representatives and ensure they were adequately trained or competent to provide the financial services covered by Quattro’s licence.
Additionally, it found Quattro failed to comply with financial services laws by not lodging its annual financial statements with ASIC for the 2016-2020 financial years in the required timeframe, not ensuring the financial services covered by its licence were provided efficiently, honestly and fairly, and not having adequate human and financial resources and risk management systems.
Gibson’s ban was the result of ASIC finding he was involved in Quattro’s contraventions of financial services laws and was not competent to control an entity that carries on a financial services business, and it will be it recorded on the regulator’s banned and disqualified register.
Quattro and Gibson have the right to seek a review of ASIC’s decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The cancellation and banning follow a series of actions by ASIC involving Mayfair 101 during 2021.
In March 2021, the Federal Court found four Mayfair 101 Group entities – that were corporate authorised representatives of Quattro – had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and made false or misleading representations when promoting Mayfair’s debenture products.
Later that year, in December, the Federal Court ordered the four entities to pay penalties of $30 million for misleading advertising and the entities have since appealed the orders.
The Federal Court, in April 2021, also restrained James Mawhinney, an individual representative of Quattro, from advertising and soliciting funds in relation to financial products for 20 years, and he has also appealed those orders.
