Last updated 14:32 10/05/2013
The Serious Fraud Office has estimated the cost of its Hanover Finance investigation at $1.1 million.
On April 30, the SFO decided not to prosecute anyone associated with the collapse of Hanover Finance after an investigation lasting two years and eight months. Read more
Federal watchdogs are preparing to exert more control over costs in big bankruptcy cases.
In the initial push, the first overhaul of guidelines intended to keep costs in check in about 17 years is expected to be unveiled by July 1. It aims to tamp down on fee and expense applications submitted by attorneys for corporate debtors and sometimes creditors. Read more
By Hamish Fletcher 1:10 PM Tuesday May 14, 2013
Suggestions the Financial Markets Authority knew about David Ross long before his business was raided were “crap”, the regulator’s chief executive told a conference this morning.
“Let me very clear about this because there have been some assertions and some whispering campaigns that everybody knew about Ross and that we were too slow to act. I’m standing here before you today to say that it took one phone call, one, for us to take action. Any suggestion that we knew about Ross beforehand is crap,” FMA head Sean Hughes said at the 2013 Forensic Conference in Auckland today. Read more
By Hamish Fletcher 1:30 PM Monday Apr 29, 2013
New Zealand’s market regulator has written to Ross Asset Management investors trying to get information to help its probe of the collapsed Wellington firm. Read more
By Hamish Fletcher 5:30 AM Monday May 13, 2013
Tougher licensing rules for authorised financial advisers – like suspected Ponzi-scheme operator David Ross – won’t be introduced in a law change despite being suggested by the market regulator. Read more
Frank Marvin 09 May 2013
Some Queenstown investors have lost their life savings in the Ross Asset Management collapse, a man fighting on their behalf says. Read more
JASON KRUPP Last updated 05:00 30/04/2013
Ross Asset Management (RAM) investors have slated the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) for taking six months to directly contact them, saying the watchdog is doing a poor job of standing up for investors.
That was in reaction to the first piece of direct correspondence from the regulator that many of the victims caught in the RAM collapse have received. It was dated May 1 but sent last week, and contains a list of 45 detailed financial questions.
This 16 minute program hosted by Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner can be viewed here
This is disturbing, that the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) will not release the second referee’s details.
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NBR Print edition 5/4/13 – FMA declines NBR access to information – Duncan Bridgeman
The Financial Markets Authority is refusing to disclose the identity of a second referee supporting David Ross’ application to become an authorised financial advisor.
To get their ticket, and AFA is required to pass a “good character” assessment with support from two testimonials, including one from a recognised industry or professional organisation.
Mr Ross became an AFA on July 12, 2011 after the FMA authorised him to provide “financial advice and discretionary investment management services” under section 55 of the Financial Advisors Act 2008
Following NBR enquiries, FMA confirmed in December that the Institute of Finance Professionals (INFINZ) provided one testimonial.
However, the regulator will not release details sought by NBR under the Official Information Act of a second testimony provided by a client, saying the identification is subject to the Privacy Act.
NBR sought the identity on public interest grounds including the public having a right to know the calibre of referees backing this country’s AFA’s, especially given the collapse of Ross Asset Management.
Article continues in print edition
There have been constant calls from RAM investors to sue the FMA in NZ for failing to follow up on multiple warnings over the years that RAM was fraudulent. Our advice has been its hard to sue the NZ government and RAMIG’s efforts for now would be better used elsewhere.
The following press from the Madoff case in USA shows the same problem there, the federal Appeals Court refuses to support a suit against the Securities Exchange Commission (or SEC, the equivalent of the FMA and its predecessor the Securities Commission in NZ). This is despite the SEC being given multiple warnings on Madoff, and doing multiple investigations of Madoff and failing to find anything wrong.
In NZ the FMA and the Securities Commission, as far as we know, did not even investigate Ross Asset Management, despite multiple warnings.
However, other aspects of the US law are still of interest to RAM investors. The US courts vigorously pursue claw back in Ponzi cases, and in this regard they set a common law standard for the NZ courts to specifically accept or reject.
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MADOFF INVESTORS CAN’T SUE SEC – Apr 11, 2013
Text here abridged.
Bernard Madoff’s investors can’t sue the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to uncover his massive Ponzi scheme, a federal appeals court ruled.
The regulator’s “regrettable inaction” is shielded by law, the New York-based appeals panel said today, upholding a lower-court decision to dismiss suits in which investors accused the SEC of negligence.
“Despite our sympathy for plaintiffs’ predicament (and our antipathy for the SEC’s conduct), Congress’s intent to shield regulatory agencies discretionary use of specific investigative powers defeats the investors claims, the court said.
The SEC’s inspector general found in a 2009 report that the agency had failed to make a thorough and competent investigation of Madoffs firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities Inc., despite having received detailed complaints.