A formerAMPfinancial planner, Harold Frederick Baxter Moses, has appeared in the Sydney Local Court charged with four counts of cheating and defrauding his clients and two counts of obtaining money through false or misleading statements.
The charges were brought by theAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC), which alleged Moses cheated his clients out of $334,000 in compulsory employer superannuation contributions between 1993 and 1998.
ASIC alleges Moses, who operated a superannuation intermediary business through his company Baxters Holdings, accepted the contributions from his clients but failed to pass them on to their respective superannuation accounts held by AMP, Host-Plus and ING predecessor Mercantile Mutual.
Moses resigned as an AMP agent in June 1994, but continued to receive the superannuation contributions from his clients, according to ASIC.
The Court appearance comes less than a week after another former AMP planner, Klinton Jay Lehman, was banned from acting as a representative of a securities dealer or of an investment adviser for a period of four years.
According to ASIC, Lehman had allowed an unauthorised person to advise on and recommend AMP products and place those products through Lehman’s proper authority.
In what has been a busy enforcement period for ASIC, the corporate regulator also permanently banned a further two advisers last week.
Michelle Louise Eggmolesse, a former representative ofProfessional Investment Services(PIS), and Stefan Capo, an authorised representative ofWilson HTM, were given life bans from acting as investment advisers or representatives of a dealer.
Moses is due to return to Court for committal for trial on 28 April 2003. AMP and Mercantile Mutual have compensated his clients for their losses.
