In a formal submission to the Senate inquiry into the performance of ASIC, Mrs Kay Gal said the money from her SMSF had been invested through Tarrants Financial Services, a Wollongong-based financial planning firm now in liquidation.
“As a victim of the Trio Capital fraud we were under the impression that ASIC were the financial regulators and were [supposed] to create confidence in the marketplace,” Ms Gal wrote in the submission.
“Giving a licence to an alleged fraudster to handle Australian superannuation money betrayed our confidence,” she added.
“We respectfully request your intervention and assistance in granting us compensation for the money that was stolen.”
In April 2011, the government announced it would pay $55 million in compensation to victims of the Trio Collapse under a scheme available only to APRA-regulated funds.
As ASIC confirmed in its release on the compensation arrangements, some 285 SMSFs would not be compensated, of which Ms Gal is one.
She joined ‘Victims of Financial Fraud’, an Illawarra-based organisation which represents investors denied access to Trio compensation.
The secretary of Victims of Financial Fraud, John Telford, lost $600,000 in the collapse.
Speaking with SMSF Adviser, Mr Telford was critical of ASIC’s failure to communicate with victims.
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s happening that they will not communicate to the victims….not only was it out of our hands initially, before the fraud happened, there’s a limit of what [information] an investor can [obtain],” he said.
Mr Telford had emailed the members of Victims of Financial Fraud inviting them to make individual submissions to the Senate inquiry and said his organisation was separately negotiating with the government to outline its concerns.
Fair comments Wanderer however Trio did have highly rated independent research, large well regarded auditor, big 4 trustee, large professional super funds investing into them, acceptance by platforms etc. The failings were at top levels where SMSF trustees had every right to expect the job was being done properly – let down at the top level
It’s difficult not to empathise with victims of fraud but it would be useful if the article were to inform what ‘independent’ research was obtained on Trio before proceeding with the investment. It should also be asked as to whether SMSF trustees are willing to subscribe to independent research and did any research house have a ‘highly recommended’ status on these funds? If not, should other SMSFs ‘bail-out’ less responsible trustees?
Perhaps ASIC should be reduced to a public registry and most of its funds allocated to class action litigation by investors. The enforcement of third party rights by uninterested public officials is always problematic. I know of one case where it was almost like Monty Python when a victim of fraud tried to report the matter…. “no, you have to use this number… sorry, this is the wrong number.. it’s really a matter for the US authorities” etc etc.