Trio victims renew call for action against ASIC

The organisation representing self-managed superannuation fund victims of the Trio/Astarra collapse has called on the Government to task the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce (SFCT) with investigating the role of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in the affair.

Responding to a pre-Easter announcement by the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Kelly O’Dwyer about the manner in which the SFCT had dismantled two sophisticated tax frauds, the Victims of Financial Fraud (VOFF) published an open letter calling for action on ASIC and the actions of the now Federal Opposition leader, Bill Shorten, as the relevant minister at the time.

The open letter particularly rebuts earlier claims by the Government that ASIC and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) acted appropriately with respect to the Trio/Astarra fraud.

“VOFF Inc vehemently rebut the Government’s claim and urge that the SFCT investigate ASIC and Mr Shorten’s handling of the Trio matter because they covered-up regulatory failures by distracting attention from the Trio crime toward unrelated issues like ‘poor financial advice’ and then allowed vested interests and union bias to influence outcomes,” the letter claimed.

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It also alleged that ASIC had withheld important evidence from the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiry into the Trio fraud and in later legal proceedings.