ASIC Banning order Overturned

By Michael Linehan, David Walker and Phillip Vickery

Last week, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) overturned a banning order imposed by ASIC on Mr Lance Rosenberg, a director of Tricom Equities Limited (Tricom), from providing any financial services for a period of 4 years. While the decision may be open to review, some interesting comments were made.

The facts

The conduct giving cause to the banning order related to actions of Mr Rosenberg in relation to securities that Tricom, as a lender and held by it as security for loans, had on-lent to Opes Prime. Opes Prime had administrators appointed on 27 March 2008. Having on-lent securities to Opes Prime, and being concerned about Tricom's ability to recover those securities, Mr Rosenberg spent a number of days on and after 27 March 2008 obtaining advice from corporate advisers and insolvency specialists about the best way to recover them. A number of alternatives were considered and Mr Rosenberg