ASIC takes further action against serial securities offender

TheAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) obtained final orders in the Supreme Court of Queensland yesterday against the directors of Drury Management, one of which is regarded by ASIC as a serial securities offender, and appointed a liquidator to wind up an unregistered managed investment scheme operated by the company.

The Court made declarations against the directors of Drury Management, Piet Cornelius Walters and Mark Samuel Evans, as well as Ransom House, a company associated with Walters, stating that the respondents operated an unregistered investment scheme, and they carried on an investment advice business, securities business and financial services business without a licence or licence exemption.

Between August 1999 and September 2002, Walters and Evans obtained loans from private investors through their accounting practice, Drurys, promising investors returns of 12 per cent to 15 per cent per annum. By the time an interim receiver was appointed in September 2002, 118 investors had nearly $8 million invested through Drury Management.

The Court also imposed a permanent injunction restraining the respondents from further operating the scheme, receiving or soliciting funds in connection with the scheme, dealing with any property held by them, and destroying or interfering with any of their books and records.

Ian David Jessup of Jessup and Partners was appointed as liquidator of the scheme, Drury Management and Ransom House by the Court.

This is not the first time Walters has felt ASIC’s wrath. In September last year, he appeared in court on 13 criminal charges for engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to the provision of a financial service. This was in addition to earlier civil action taken by ASIC in September 2002, when the regulator appointed an interim receiver to the managed investment scheme operated by Drury Management.

Walters, who is a Dutch citizen and also known as Fred Siebolt Hofman, is also wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant relating to 53 counts of fraud and theft allegedly committed between 1985 and 1991, involving approximately CAD$9.7 million.