ASIC has banned Dr Bingxing Hu (Dr Hu), of Melbourne, Victoria, from providing financial services for five years.
Dr Hu was a director of AFS Capital Securities Limited ACN 143 006 151 (AFS Capital) from 8 April 2010 until 18 April 2017. AFS Capital’s primary business is to assist companies to list on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
The banning follows an ASIC investigation into Dr Hu’s conduct between 4 August 2014 and 4 June 2015, when AFS Capital was lead-managing a listing on ASX by a company.
Following a hearing, an ASIC delegate found that Dr Hu failed to comply with a financial services law by knowingly engaging in conduct that was likely to mislead in contravention of s1041H(1) of the Corporations Act. The ASIC delegate also found that Dr Hu may not be adequately trained, or not competent, to provide financial services, having demonstrated by his conduct a disregard and a misunderstanding of the rules applying to the financial services that he was providing.
The ASIC delegate found that Dr Hu:
- caused a list supplied by the company of 158 applicants for shares incorrectly purported to be Australian residents to be forwarded to the Company’s share registry;
- signed a statutory declaration declaring that to his “knowledge…no artificial means have been used to achieve the spread requirement” when he knew or should have known that this was false; and
- sent emails to various persons that falsely represented that the minimum subscription requirement had been met.
Dr Hu has a right to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for review of ASIC’s banning order.
To see the complete announcement, click here.