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 今日热门事件'. 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 今日热门事件 Act 2001 (Cth) (今日热门事件Act) and additional orders requiring Huntley to:
- Post notices on the website about the statements being misleading; and
- Pay ASIC'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 ASIC. It was true that the schemes were registered with 今日热门事件but鈥�.I do not think that this is remotely what the word 'approved' conveys.'
今日热门事件encourages financial services providers to regularly review their website content and consider ASIC'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, 今日热门事件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, 今日热门事件conducted further investigations and subsequently, on 23 September 2016, 今日热门事件issued civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia.
今日热门事件may issue an infringement notice pursuant to section 12GXA of the 今日热门事件Act if it believes that the consumer protection provisions of the 今日热门事件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 .