WA individual sentenced over $57k insider trading
A former corporate adviser has been sentenced in the Supreme Court of Western Australia for insider trading to realise a profit of more than $57,000.
Cameron Kerr Waugh was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment from 25 March, with release after nine months, upon entry into a recognisance to be of good behaviour for 15 months.
The offence related to his trading of shares in Genesis Minerals Limited.
Waugh pleaded guilty to acquiring 747,626 shares in Genesis between 14 and 21 September 2021, when he became aware of a funding proposal that included a multimillion-dollar Genesis share placement and a restructure of the Genesis board that would see experienced mining executives, Raleigh Finlayson and Neville Power, join the board.
He came into possession of the information through his role at Omnia Company Pty Ltd where he received email correspondence of the proposal and a draft ASX announcement for Genesis outlining the funding package and Finlayson and Power’s invitations to join the Genesis board.
This information subsequently became public on 22 September 2021, and the share price rose 187 per cent.
Waugh then sold his shares between 1 and 19 November 2021, and realised a profit of $57,256.44.
As a result of his conviction, Waugh is automatically disqualified from managing corporations for five years.
The matter was prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
Recommended for you
Global X has painted a worrying picture for active ETFs in Australia, with investor adoption proving uneven and the popularity of its low-cost index counterparts only growing stronger.
Australian equity ETFs attracted record inflows of $3.2 billion in 1Q25, while heightened volatility led to a decline in flows for global equity ETFs, according to Vanguard.
The failure of a clinical trial by biotech firm Opthea has caused shares in its backer Regal Partners to decline 52 per cent year-to-date and hit its funds under management, quarterly flows show.
GQG Partners has revealed its quarterly flows for the first three months of 2025 were up 5.8 per cent, after a difficult final quarter of 2024 as a result of institutional redemptions.
