Enforcement

Google Ads - which is not the same as AdSense - is getting new policies in the UK.

They apply if you are what Google defines as a financial services business.

Do you agree?

One would have thought that Initial Coin Offerings had been a flash in the pan and already out of fashion. And that may, to a point, be so: their heyday was, of course, three or four years ago.

But the essential problem seems to be that things take a while to filter through so that, when stories reactivate interest, everything old becomes new again, to coin a phrase. So the news that a case relating to conduct in 2017 and 2018 may be the spark that reignites burning embers as some people remember the concept of the ICO and think "that might be a way to help my business that's struggling through the CoVid-19 Pandemic.

Ross Andrew Hopkins of Killara, New South Wales, Australia, has been sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales to a maximum period of six years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of four years following his conviction on a guilty plea for using clients' funds for his own benefit.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has alleged that unlicensed financial advice is being given in relation to the development of property by a company headquartered in Perth and that it relates to an unlicensed investment scheme. The facts as set out by ASIC imply other issues, too. ASIC has frozen the assets of Monica Kaur, MKS Property Investments/Developments Pty Ltd (MKS Property), Paradise Property Group Pty Ltd (Paradise Property) as well as against Sadu Singh, Melvin Paul Singh and Stephanie Lee. All but Lee have been banned from leaving Australia.

On 22 October 2020, following the settlement with prosecutors and regulators in the USA, the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore, the Board of Goldman Sachs, issued a statement on the affair.

It is published below, in its entirety, unedited.

On 22 October 2020, following the settlement with prosecutors and regulators in the USA, the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore, David M. Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, wrote a memorandum to all employees.

It is published below, in its entirety, unedited.

In a congressional hearing in 1987, US Congressman Norman F Lent of New York put it to the Chairman of the USA's Securities and Exchange Commission, John SR Shad that Rudolph William Louis ("Rudy") Giuliani, then the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, had a better public relations office than the SEC, it appearing that it was his office that had done all the work in the insider dealing case centred around Boesky, Milken, Levine and Drexel, Burnham, Lambert. Shad's explanation of the relationship which holds good today.

Société Générale Securities Australia is subject to criminal charges brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

SocGenSecAus? If you think that's silly, the acronym used by ASIC is worse: "SGSAPL". We'll just stick wiith "SocGen Securities".

It's there. In plain sight. In the body of the press release from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. It's a statement that ASIC, having been found, damned by its own words and those of the industry, wanting in its supervision of the Financial Services Landscape, is taking the gloves off. It's not going to stand for any more poor compliance. It's going to make "ongoing efforts to improve standards across the financial services industry." So this case is going to be spectacular, isn't it?

It's not the best way to start the week, much less the month. The first notice from Australian regulator The Australian Securities and Investment Commission tells that Macquarie Securities (Australia) Limited has been issued a penalty notice : ASIC "believes" the company "contravened" market integrity rules. The failure was of design, implementation and maintenance of compliance systems, not an intention to not comply, ASIC says. Plus ça change in so much of the financial sector, then.

A solicitor (attorney) who was advising a company on a proposed purchase of a large stake in another company has been accused of using non-public information to make share transactions and profit therefrom.

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission has suspended the former responsible officer of China Merchants Securities (HK) Co., Limited for compliance failures.

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has reprimanded Guosen Securities (HK) Brokerage Company, Limited (Guosen) and fined it HKE15.2 million for failures in complying with Counter-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing (CFT) regulatory requirements when handling third party fund deposits

Following an ASIC investigation, the Federal Court of Australia has wound up Australian financial services Licensee CFS Private Wealth Pty Ltd and Combined Financial Solutions Pty Ltd, a corporate authorised representative of CFS Private Wealth, and restrained its director, Graeme Walter Miller, from providing financial services for 25 years. Miller is also disqualified from managing corporations for three years.

Another day, another judgment against an Australian banking group for misconduct. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission's civil action against two WestPac group companies ended with findings of fault - but, again, ASIC has not succeeded on grounds upon which it thought it was safe. Spoiler alert: the case was commenced before the start of the Royal Commission on Misconduct in Banking, etc.