On Monday afternoon, Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky made interim orders restraining Venture Egg boss Ferras Merhi from operating within the financial services industry.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Merhi engaged in “unconscionable conduct, failed to act in the best interests of clients, gave conflicted advice, and provided defective statements of advice while receiving millions of dollars”.
The regulator said that between 2020 and 2024, Merhi and advisers working for him allegedly advised clients to invest around $296 million of their superannuation into First Guardian and around $230 million into Shield.
Merhi’s businesses, ASIC alleged, were paid almost $18 million in upfront advice fees and more than $19 million from entities associated with First Guardian for marketing the fund to clients.
“Today’s outcome immediately restrains Mr Merhi, or through his servants, agents or employees, from carrying on any business related to financial products or financial services, providing financial product advice, dealing in financial products, or marketing superannuation or managed investment scheme products,” ASIC said.
Justice Moshinsky said he was satisfied that there is an appreciable risk that Merhi would continue to provide financial product advice in a manner that contravenes the Corporations Act unless restrained, and that the injunctions are in the public interest.
Alongside the injunction, the court also appointed Paul Anthony Allen as receiver to Merhi’s property for a period of 90 days, who will identify all of his assets and liabilities and prepare a report.
Last week, ASIC told the court that the former adviser has only been disclosing assets once the regulator had already discovered them.
Among this assortment of undisclosed assets is a US$9.6 million holding in a Cayman Islands company that appears to have an Isle of Man bank account.
The regulator also alleged First Guardian also provided inflated loans to Merhi in order for him to purchase Financial Services Group Australia, which was a licensee he ran while he and Venture Egg were licensed through InterPrac.
Merhi has previously told media that the $6.3 million loan was not, in fact, a loan and there was never an agreement for it to be repaid.
The court also appointed Renee Sarah Di Carlo as provisional liquidator to Venture Egg Financial Services Pty Ltd and United Financial Advice Pty Ltd, which are both entities through which Merhi and other financial advisers provided advice to clients.
The liquidator must report to the court within 28 days on the financial position, solvency and likely returns to creditors of the businesses, as well as any suspected misconduct by officers.
In August, ASIC announced it had stepped up its enforcement efforts in relation to Merhi.
The corporate regulator has been looking at Merhi for some time, taking its first action in February this year when it sought interim freezing orders over his property, which the Federal Court granted and subsequently extended until 12 December 2025.
ASIC then cancelled the Australian Financial Services Licence of Financial Services Group Australia (FSGA), which he also controlled, while also permanently banning its “on paper” responsible manager, Graham Holmes, before securing travel restraint orders against Merhi in July.
this is why dogs are so much better than humans
Good about time. Now go after the crooks that managed Shield and Guardian
Lock him up and throw away the key.
So, First Guardian provided large sums of money to Merhi either in the form of loans or, as argued by Merhi, not a loan with no repayment required ( therefore a gift ?) and then was rewarded by huge volumes of investors monies being channelled into First Guardian?
The extreme level of conflict of interest here is palpable.
Driven by absolute greed and clearly not in the best interest of the clients or investors, but very clearly in the best interests of Merhi and the Advisers who participated in this scheme.
Agreed, with one caveat. Not all the advisers who participated in this scheme will have been aware of what was happening, or benefited from it. Some advisers will have been junior employees doing what they were told, by people who had power over them and theoretically knew best.
Unfortunately our financial services licensing model is structured in a way that allows conflicted practice owners and product companies to use innocent well intentioned advisers as their distribution force. This has long been a problem, which should have been fixed by Hayne, but instead he entrenched it and made it worse.
Im not convinced on the innocent. Naive possibly.
So you’re saying naivety is a crime?
Thanks to FASEA, I had to do some more subjects at uni. Some of the people in my classes were new entrants and career changers. The ignorance, naivety, and gullibility of these people was astonishing to the experienced practitioners in the class. But we were all like that once, and you have to start somewhere.
These are the sort of people who would have leapt at a job opportunity with a seemingly wise, experienced, successful, and nurturing Ferras Merhi (or others like him), to further their careers and gain some real world experience. They would have done what they were told, and assumed their boss knew best. These people are not stupid or evil, just inexperienced. Naivety is not a crime.
Good point
I would also add that it is concerning the amount of private equity coming from alternate asset groups ie property developers to purchase advice practices in the self licensed space.