In the wake of a disciplinary committee ruling last month cashiering one of their own, iNO’s mail is that senior members of industry heavyweight KordaMentha are puzzled about the ruling and about ASIC’s decision this week to make the punishment public.
The decision, delivered on February 28 and announced in a statement released by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) on Wednesday, comes four months after the Singapore-based restructuring and insolvency specialist was subject to a referral to a disciplinary committee.
Such referrals generally follow a registered liquidator’s failure or refusal to acknowledge and/or satisfy a concerns notice issued by the regulator.
In the case of KordaMentha Singapore partner Cameron Lindsay Duncan ASIC alleged that he “no longer had the qualifications, experience, knowledge and abilities prescribed under the Corporations Act 2001 (the Act)”.
A glance at Duncan’s profile on the KordaMentha website however makes such a conclusion difficult to reconcile.
Duncan has it states, “extensive working experience in the Asia Pacific including Singapore, Indonesia, PRC, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, PNG and Australia”.
At the time of the referral ASIC also brought to the Committee’s attention the fact that Duncan is not resident in Australia but in its statement this week ASIC said the committee did not consider that aspect in its deliberations. See: https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2023-releases/23-065mr-liquidator-disciplinary-committee-cancels-registration-of-cameron-lindsay-duncan/
From that it’s probably safe to infer that Duncan wasn’t able to show ASIC that he’d collected sufficient continuous professional development points to satisfy the regulator’s box ticking bureaucrats, who would themselves be wholly incapable of assessing an individual practitioner’s fitness to be registered any other way, particularly if that practitioner operates outside the jurisdiction.
It’s not after all like ASIC’s ranks bulge with liquidators current and former who, after acquiring years of legal and commercial experience and technical expertise decide to pursue a public service career keeping their former colleagues honest.
Speaking of which, ASIC’s announcement in respect of the committee’s decision also raises the unsavoury spectre if not of dishonesty than of its oilier cousin, transparency and specifically its lack.
The ASIC statement provides almost no reference to the committee’s deliberations and reasons, which remain hidden because according to statement the committee didn’t instruct ASIC to publish them.
This is disingenuous. An ASIC delegate always chairs these three member committees and there is no way of knowing if the other two delegates – one nominated by ARITA and the other by the Federal Attorney General – are even aware that they have an obligation to determine whether or not the reasons should be made public.
Our mail however indicates that KordaMentha’s puzzlement may relate to an agreement our sources say the firm thought it had with ASIC whereby the decision in regards to Duncan would not be made public.
The ASIC announcement means Duncan, who did not respond to emails requesting comment by iNO’s publication deadline, may have to now show cause why his membership of various professional associations should be unaffected.
His resume lists memberships of ARITA, INSOL, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Singapore.
Has ASIC’s publication of the committee’s determination imperilled his membership of any or perhaps all of these organisations? Maybe puzzlement isn’t all Duncan and the KordaMentha hierarchy are feeling?
Seems a sily outcome for such a highly qualified and regarded practitioner.
so many dodgy practitioners out there, but they decide this is the action they want to pursue. FMD