ALMOST three years to the day since the collapse of his Canberra investment businesses, former high profile industry figure, Max Vardanega, has been banned for life from practising as a securities dealer or investment adviser.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) issued the ban following Vardanega’s conviction for dishonestly obtaining loans worth close to $1.5 million for his company Australian Investment Advisers (AIA).
Vardanega was earlier given a five-year jail sentence suspended on the condition he enters a $5,000 self recognisance and serve 52 weekends in detention.
Ron Ladlay, ASIC’s ACT regional commissioner, says while Vardanega is not currently a representative of any licensee, the banning action was taken to prevent him returning to the industry.
In September 1997, two of Vardanega’s other businesses, AIA and AIA Services, were put into liquidation with combined debts totalling more than $2.4 million.
Vardanega was well known in the investment and financial planning world for his work on developing codes for identifying unlisted collective investments and involving Government agencies in recognising the codes.
The codes published by one of Vardanega’s companies, Australian Pacific Investment Register (APIR), in The Yellow Book, became an almost universally accepted industry standard.
APIR was later bought out by former consultant to the company, Andrew Hutchings, who developed the codes to cover 4,500 active and 3,500 terminated unlisted collective investment products.
