Ross Tarrant, former sole director of Tarrants Financial Consultants in Wollongong, was banned by ASIC in 2012 – a banning order that was upheld in a 20 December 2013 ruling by the AAT, which affirmed the corporate regulator’s determination that Mr Tarrant had breached a number of financial services laws in recommending funds under the management of Trio Capital.
Earlier this week, ASIC issued a statement to the press welcoming the AAT decision, with the body’s deputy chairman Peter Kell paraphrasing the tribunal’s assessment of Mr Tarrant’s behaviour as “incompetent and negligent” and outlining the former adviser’s breaches of relevant laws.
However, in an email sent to InvestorDaily yesterday, Mr Tarrant criticised ASIC’s portrayal of the AAT decision, claiming it is tantamount to a “deliberate deception”, particularly regarding alleged breaches of disclosure requirements.
The statement issued by ASIC’s media unit stated that the AAT affirmed that Mr Tarrant was guilty of “failing to disclose in statements of advice the receipt of a marketing allowance from Shawn Richard for investing clients’ monies in the [Astarra Strategic Fund]”.
It then went on to explain that from “from November 2008 to December 2009, an associate of TFC, Tarrants Finance Pty Ltd of which Mr Tarrant was director, received more than $1.1 million in marketing allowance from Mr Richard”.
In the email, Mr Tarrant claimed this section of the press statement was a “deliberate attempt” by ASIC to imply that he did not disclose $1.1 million of payments.
“Each sentence read separately is true, however when read in conjunction with each other leads to a very different interpretation,” Mr Tarrant said. “In fact, the ASIC case was that no more than $42,075 had not been disclosed yet ASIC deliberately imply otherwise, despite full knowledge that full disclosure was made on 450 occasions to 220 clients.
“I have disputed ASIC’s figure of $42,075 undisclosed as my submission is that only $3,366 was undisclosed inadvertently.”
Moreover, Mr Tarrant made the argument that the issue of disclosure has no relevance to the fraud associated with the collapse of Trio Capital.
“The disclosure or non disclosure of $3,366 or $42,075 of perfectly legal marketing allowance payments, has nothing whatever to do with the loss of $180 million to organised crime under the very noses of ASIC and APRA as seems to be lost on journalists as they jump on the band wagon and attack the adviser,” Mr Tarrant said.
“ASIC doesn’t want to let the truth get in the way of a good story,” he said.
