AMP agent pleads guilty to fraud
A formerAMPsuperannuation agent has entered a guilty plea in the Sydney District Court to one charge of defrauding a former client following anAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) investigation.
Thirty seven-year-old Harold Frederick Moses of Vaucluse, Sydney, had been operatating a superannuation intermediary business through his company Baxters Holdings.
An ASIC investigation found between 1993 and 1998, Moses accepted $318,000 in compulsory employer superannuation contributions from his client but failed to pass these on to the relevant superannuation funds - AMP andHost-Plus.
Moses resigned as an AMP agent in June 1994, but continued to receive the superannuation contributions from his client.
An administrator was appointed to Baxters Holdings in January 1998, with AMP subsequently compensating Moses' clients for the losses suffered.
The matter is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, with Moses to be sentenced in October.
The guilty plea follows a wave of actions from ASIC in the past week. On Monday, two directors and two employees of a company associated in promoting a scheme with the notorious Wattle Group pleaded guilty to charges in the Brisbane District Court and will be sentenced later this month.
At the end of last week, two executives of a firm that allowed superannuation fund members to redeem their superannuation also appeared in the Gold Coast Magistrates Court at the hands of ASIC.
To date, ASIC has banned a total of 23 financial advisers in the 2003 calendar year for periods varying from one year up to a permanent banning.
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