ASIC charges Wattle scheme administrator
TheAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) has charged another executive in relation to the failed multi-level investment scheme, the Wattle Group, that was shut down by the regulator back in 2000.
Anscor general manager Kenneth Edwin Parker was sentenced late last week in the Brisbane District Court to a $1000 three-year good behaviour bond following a conviction on charges relating to his role in promoting the scheme. ASIC alleges that because of his actions six investors lost about $345,000.
Parker did not contest the charges and pleaded guilty to being knowingly concerned in the promotion of prescribed interests by Anscor, a Brisbane-based investment management and financial consultancy company, in contravention of the Corporations Act.
Anscor was responsible for administering the investments, and received 40 per cent per annum commissions on the funds sourced from the Wattle Group, which raised over $160 million from over 2700 Australian investors and was closed down after ASIC commenced proceedings in March 1998.
Parker, in March 1997, was granted a Limited Power of Attorney by Geoffrey Robert Dexter, the operator of Wattle, which allowed him to execute Wattle agreements on behalf of Dexter, who was jailed by ASIC for 10 years in 2001.
Parker has also been automatically disqualified from managing a corporation for five years as a result of the conviction.
Three other promoters of the Wattle scheme, Marshall John Cobb of Tax Invest Australia, Howard Jeffrey Owen of Fin Invest and Bruce Raymond Walden of Australian Secured Mortgages have also recently been charged with similar offences.
In April 2002, Cobb was sentenced to a two-year $2000 good behaviour bond and ordered to pay $10,000 within a two-year period.
In July 2002, Owen was sentenced to 300 hours community service and a 12-month $1000 good behaviour bond, while a year later Walden was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to a $2000 three-year good behaviour bond.
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