ASIC bans former Forex Capital Trading account manager from providing financial services

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today announces the imposition of a ban on Steven Marsh, a former employee of Forex Capital Trading Pty Ltd, from the financial services industry. He is banned from providing financial services for a period of three years.

Forex CT employed Mr Marsh as an account manager between February 2018 and March 2019. During this period, he engaged with clients to trade in CFDs and margin FX Contracts.

ASIC found that Mr Marsh:

• has not complied with financial services law;
• is not adequately trained or is not competent to provide financial services; and
• is not a fit and proper person to provide financial services.

In addition, ASIC found Mr Marsh made misleading representations to clients, including that:

• clients would make profits trading with Forex CT when there were no reasonable grounds for making such representations, given that an investment in a CFD is a speculative high-risk investment; and
• clients reduced the risk of incurring trading losses if they made increased deposits into their trading accounts, when in fact increased deposits would have the effect of placing more client money at risk.

ASIC also concluded that Mr Marsh engaged in unconscionable conduct. This included engaging in high pressure sales strategies and unfair practices in order to encourage clients to make deposits or delay or cancel client requests to withdraw their own funds from their trading accounts.

In finding that Mr Marsh is not adequately trained or competent, ASIC determined that he failed to provide the general advice warning when giving general financial advice and, on several occasions, provided personal advice.

Mr Marsh has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.

As FinanceFeeds has reported, a month ago, ASIC cancelled the Australian financial services (AFS) licence of Forex CT.

ASIC cancelled Forex CT’s licence after its investigation revealed the business model of the broker disregarded key obligations of an AFS licensee and resulted in unconscionable conduct, misleading and deceptive conduct and a failure to manage conflicts of interest. The investigation conducted by the regulator has also revealed that Forex CT lacked sound ethical values and judgement in dealing with clients, failed to ensure its representatives were adequately trained and complied with financial services laws and failed to ensure that financial services covered by its licence were provided efficiently, honestly and fairly.