Former adviser convicted for inappropriate advice
A former Victorian financial adviser who has been banned for four years has also been convicted for providing inappropriate advice and has been ordered to pay back more than $684,000 to five clients.
The South Gippsland-based former adviser Kevin Maxwell George Whitting pleaded guilty to five charges of providing inappropriate advice in Frankston Magistrates Court in south-east Melbourne last week.
Whitting also admitted to a further five charges of providing false and misleading statements to three of five investors in the Blue Diamond Deposits Trust No. 1 (BDT), a managed investment scheme which collapsed in 2010.
In the case prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Whitting was convicted of all 10 offences, ordered to pay back the money and was also fined $5000.
He was banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) from providing financial services for four years in 2011.
Another adviser also banned in 2011 has been ordered to stand trial in Perth District Court in early 2014 on fraud and stealing offences totalling more than $3.7 million.
Former Australian Stockbroking and Advisory Services Limited authorised representative Todd Michael King was committed for trial after a committal mention in Perth's Magistrates Court yesterday.
King was charged in September 2013 with one count of fraud and four counts of stealing. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges which relate to King entering into contracts with two clients to borrow shares and funds as collateral on margin loan accounts.
According to ASIC, it is alleged that King borrowed money and shares from clients to use within a margin loan account and transferred more than $2.4 million in shares from client accounts, without their knowledge or consent, to cover margin calls made on the account.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is prosecuting the matter. King faces a maximum seven years jail for each of the stealing charges and a maximum 10 years jail for the fraud charge.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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