The Federal Court of Australia has ordered Huntley Management Limited (Huntley) to pay a penalty of $50,000 for false and misleading advertising that its investment projects were 'approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission'. Huntley made the statements on its website between 21 September 2010 and 7 October 2015 and in two advertisements in a national newspaper on 25 November 2014 and 11 February 2015.
Huntley, which is a responsible entity of various managed investment schemes, admitted that the statements were false and misleading. It also consented to, and the Federal Court made two declarations of, contraventions of section 12DB of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ob体育 Act) and additional orders requiring Huntley to:
- Post notices on the website about the statements being misleading; and
- Pay ob体育's litigation costs.
In his judgment, His Honour Justice Perram found that the statements about 'approved' investment projects were false and misleading because:
'Huntley's projects had not been approved by ob体育. It was true that the schemes were registered with ob体育 but鈥�.I do not think that this is remotely what the word 'approved' conveys.'
ob体育 encourages financial services providers to regularly review their website content and consider ob体育's guidance on promoting financial products and advice services in Regulatory Guide 234 Advertising financial products and advice services including credit: Good practice guidance. (Ref: ).
Background
On 6 October 2015, ob体育 issued two infringement notices to Huntley in respect of the advertisements including statements about 'approved' investment projects. Huntley failed to pay the penalties of $10,200 specified in each infringement notice.
Following Huntley's failure to pay the infringement notices, ob体育 conducted further investigations and subsequently, on 23 September 2016, ob体育 issued civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia.
ob体育 may issue an infringement notice pursuant to section 12GXA of the ob体育 Act if it believes that the consumer protection provisions of the ob体育 Act have been contravened.聽 A person who receives an infringement notice is not obliged to pay the penalty in the notice.
A copy of the judgment can be found .