Mark Kawecki from Frankston, Victoria, has been convicted and fined $30,000 in the Melbourne County Court for engaging in dishonest conduct. As a result, he has been disqualified from managing corporations until 4 November 2025.
Under ASX listing rules, the minimum spread requirement specifies a company must hold a minimum number of unrelated shareholders before its shares can be quoted and traded on the ASX, in order to demonstrate sufficient investor interest and ensure adequate liquidity at the time of listing.
Mr Kawecki was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, two counts of dishonest conduct in relation to a financial product in contravention of sections 1041G and 1311(1) of the Corporations Act. It was reportedly the first criminal prosecution for offending of this kind.
ASIC alleged that between 19 January 2015 and 23 December 2016, Mr Kawecki applied for shares in four companies that were undertaking initial public offerings or were in the process of relisting on the ASX, and that the applications for shares in these companies contained false information about the beneficial holder of those shares or false information about the applicant’s address.
The Crown submitted that Mr Kawecki’s conduct was designed to artificially satisfy the minimum spread requirement in the ASX Listing Rules.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions prosecuted the matter.
Mr Kawecki was banned from providing financial services for seven years in 2018, following an ASIC investigation into his conduct.
He was charged with dishonest conduct in July last year, before he pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonest conduct in relation to a financial product earlier this year in March.
This guy and others like him peppers listed company registers with one share in many apparently unrelated holdings to prey on companies making a capital raising at a discount. Every company you and your clients own has these leeches sucking on the costs paid to the share registry and Australia Post for no good purpose
I’m not convinced this guy was/is even an adviser
And is this really worse than misappropriating $120K to pay your tax bill? really???
Mr Kawecki was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, two counts of dishonest conduct…wonder if having ASIC pay for your own personal tax advice would be seen as dishonest conduct?
Can we not call this person a financial “adviser”? He’s more like a financier/stockbroker.
Accountants who have wrongdoings are also called financial advisers by the press. Not really fair isn’t?
Pity the same punishment isn’t handed out to ASIC execs…
How many years will ASIC execs receive banning orders for after misappropriating tax payers’ money? It’s essentially fraud/theft
was this guy a stockbroker or a financial adviser?
Is this a Financial Adviser or Stock Broker??
Funny I cannot find this guy on the Adviser Register which goes back a number of years. Why call him a Financial Adviser?
Because it helps supports ASIC’s push to tarnish the brand of all non-industry superfund financial advisers so they keep driving their ideology to support the union run industry superfunds but like others before have said – pity the rules for advisers don’t apply to the Execs actually running ASIC. Imagine having just one standard!
Good, idiots like this have caused the fasea debacle
One in a thousand ???