Former financial adviser’s appeal upheld
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) has upheld an appeal by Tony Davidof, a former financial adviser, against the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC's) decision, which banned him from providing financial services for three years.
ASIC confirmed that it was considering appealing the AAT's decision to the Federal Court.
In December, 2015, Davidof was banned from providing financial services after an ASIC investigation found he had been engaged in manipulation of the price of MINI warrants, a type of derivative product traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), which were issued by Credit Suisse.
However, the AAT decided that the MINI warrants in this case were not a derivative under the Corporations Act and therefore not financial products.
According to ASIC, the prices at which Davidof and another former employee were trading MINIs in 2013 were designed to transfer the profit/loss from all the preceding trading, without reflecting the SPI Futures that were actually traded and this was likely to have the effect of creating an artificial price for trading in the affected MINIs on the ASX.
AUTHOR
Oksana Patron
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