Interim receivers have been appointed over the assets of Chris Marco, AMS Holdings, and AMS as a trustee for the AMS Holdings Trust as Marco had repeatedly failed to generate material returns for investors, and what appeared to be a shortfall in excess of $200 million between assets held by the defendants and amounts owed to investors according to the corporate regulator.
In an announcement, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), said it had successfully applied to the Federal Court of Australia to appoint the receivers.
ASIC said the appointment of the interim receivers was part of its ongoing application for final orders to wind up an alleged unregistered managed investment scheme operated by Marco, with a date for the hearing of the winding up application yet to be set.
In his judgment, Justice McKerracher said: “There is a strong need for this independent assessment is apparent from the highly uncertain nature of the investment activities undertaken by Mr Marco and what appears to be a repeated failure over a lengthy period of time to generate material returns for most investors.
“There is also a serious concern, based on ASIC’s evidence, that the pooling of investor funds without adequate record keeping has meant that payment of some ‘returns’ to investors have come from contributions made by subsequent investors such that there now appears to be a shortfall in excess of $200 million between assets held by the defendants and amounts stated to be owed to investors.”
McKerracher said the receivers would be able to identify and value property available for distribution to investors, and to preserve property in the event that such distribution was ordered.
