The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) today showed how strict it can be when it comes to sanctioning for misleading statements. This time the regulatory measures concern Andrew Jeffers, a former director of GTL Trade Up Pty Ltd, which is now in liquidation. While active, the company operated in the securities sector, offering Forex and derivatives services.
Andrew Jeffers is banned from providing any financial services until May 21, 2018.
The sanctions are imposed after ASIC found that GTL Trade Up Pty Ltd issued three product disclosure statements (PDSs) in the period from March 2012 to March 2013 that included statements which were materially false or misleading.
The statements in question were:
- GTL Tradeup executes a back to back transaction for each client transaction with our parent entity GTL Trading DMCC;
- GTL Tradeup’s business is based on flow, spread/commission and leverage financing margin. GTL Tradeup does not take the other side of a client’s position with the intent to benefit from a client loss;
- GTL Tradeup does not take proprietary positions based on an expectation of market movements;
- GTL Trading DMCC and GTL Trading only conduct hedging with counterparties that are considered by Standard & Poors to be of an A+ or higher credit rating;
- Steps taken on a daily basis to ensure GTL Tradeup’s financial requirements are maintained include, but are not limited to, ..transferring money owed to clients to segregated client accounts if needed.
Liquidators were appointed to GTL on 26 September 2013 after DMCC, the main liquidity provider to the broker, failed to make funds available to to GTL to meet client withdrawals. At the time GTL, was owed about $4.35m by DMCC. GTL owed about $4.4m to its retail clients.
Jeffers has already made an application to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
To view the official announcement by ASIC, click here.