Senior Member of the AAT Egon Fice handed down a scathing judgement this week about the manner in which former Lion Advantage chief executive David Hickie handled his obligations.
The appeal followed ASIC’s decision in August 2012 to ban Mr Hickie for two years and cancel Lion’s AFSL.
Lion Advantage provided investment management services including four registered managed investment schemes, and Mr Hickie was responsible for the company’s compliance with financial services laws.
“Mr Hickie, as the director/secretary and representative of an AFSL holder, Lion, had a number of duties which were personal as well as duties to ensure that Lion complied with its duties,” Senior Member Fice said in the judgement.
The judgement also found that ASIC had been right to ban Mr Hickie for a series of failures.
“In my opinion, Mr Hickie displayed a serious disregard for the financial services law. In his case, a banning order is appropriate,” Senior Member Fice said.
During the appeal, the corporate regulator argued that Mr Hickie had failed to ensure that Lion maintained continuous professional indemnity insurance, failed to lodge audited financial reports and failed to lodge breach reports with ASIC on time.
Senior Member Fice agreed with ASIC and was particularly critical of parts of Mr Hickie’s evidence at the appeal.
“In my opinion, Mr Hickie’s explanation for Lion’s failure to maintain professional indemnity insurance at all times was unsatisfactory,” Senior Member Fice said.
“The findings of fact which I have made in this matter disclose that Mr Hickie had almost completely disregarded his and Lion’s statutory duties despite being a director, secretary and CEO of Lion.”
But the tribunal did not lay blame for any losses at Mr Hickie’s feet, with Senior Member Fice saying “the losses to investors were minimal and not necessarily due to Mr Hickie’s failure”.
Mr Hickie has a right to appeal the decision to the Federal Court.
