ASIC bans former adviser and broker for 10 years

Mr Babbage was an authorised representative of Capstone Financial Planning Pty Ltd until 14 October 2021 and the director of Babbage Finance Pty Ltd until 13 October 2021. Babbage Finance Pty Ltd was also a credit representative of My Local Broker until 1 December 2021, according to ASIC.

The ASIC banning order – which took effect from 11 March 2022 – has been handed down after the Melbourne-based adviser and broker was convicted of three charges relating to a failure to comply with a direction under the Emergency Management Act 2005 and one charge of gaining a benefit by fraud in contravention of the Criminal Code WA on 13 October 2021 in the Magistrates Court of Western Australia.

The conviction, for which Mr Babbage served three months’ jail time after being handed a six-month prison sentence, came after he pleaded guilty to the charges that largely related to falsifying documents and lying to health authorities in order to attend the AFL Grand Final in Perth last year.

Given that Victorian residents were banned from entering Western Australia at the time, the court heard last year that he and a friend had flown from Melbourne to Darwin in September and had changed documents (including transferring driver’s licences to NT and providing tenancy agreements) provided to health authorities to suggest that they were actually NT residents, which had no border restrictions with Western Australia at the time.

As section 920A of the Corporations Act gives ASIC the power to ban a person who has been convicted of fraud, the financial services regulator has now confirmed that it has banned Mr Babbage from providing financial services or engaging in credit activities for 10 years.

It also prohibits Mr Babbage from controlling an entity that engages in credit activities or carries on a financial services business, and from performing any function related to the provision of credit services.

As a further result of his fraud conviction, Mr Babbage has also been automatically disqualified from managing corporations for five years.

ASIC said it took the move after being “satisfied that Mr Babbage lacks the honesty and integrity to participate in the financial services and credit industries”.

The banning has been recorded on ASIC’s publicly available Financial Advisers Register and the Banned and Disqualified Register.

Mr Babbage now has the right to seek a review of ASIC’s decision at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

[Related: Former finance broker fined for fraud]