ASIC bans Halifax leaders

THE Gold Coast men behind failed $211 million firm Halifax Investment Services have been banned from the industry for six years.

Jeffrey Worboys (pictured) and Matthew Barnett were banned after an ASIC investigation into another of their companies, Australian Mutual Holdings Limited, which was tied to what has been described as “Australia’s biggest Ponzi scheme”.

Mr Worboys and Mr Barnett were, until February 2018, joint chief executive officers of AMH, the entity responsible for managing the Courtenay House Capital Investment Fund, which took $209 million from 780 investors.

Courtenay House was set up in 2015, with Halifax Investment Services as a broker.

Mr Worboys is the current sole director, while Mr Barnett is a former director, of failed Halifax Investment Services, which was placed into voluntary administration in November, freezing $211 million in investments belonging to 10,000 people.

Mr Worboys remains as the sole chief executive officer of AMH.

In a statement yesterday, ASIC said that when establishing the Courtenay House Capital Investment Fund, Mr Worboys and Mr Barnett did not exercise the degree of care and diligence required and failed to act in the best interest of the members of the fund.

“This included a failure to ensure that the persons responsible for trading funds had the requisite qualifications and experience to manage a foreign exchange and derivatives fund,” the statement said.

“In summary, they had not maintained the high standards expected of a financial services adviser; demonstrated a lack of integrity, judgment and professionalism; could not be relied upon to discharge the duties and obligations imposed on a provider of financial services; and were not competent to provide a financial service, and were likely to contravene a financial services law.”

Mr Worboys and Mr Barnett both have a right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decisions.

Nest eggs belonging to more than 10,000 people have been affected by the administration of Halifax Investment Services.

ASIC suspended Halifax’s financial services licence on January 8. Liquidators have been combing the company’s books looking for almost $20 million in missing funds.