Compensating victims

7.8 Criminal fines are channelled to the State’s general consolidated revenue. The rationale for this arrangement is that society at large is the ultimate victim of corporate crime, and hence, the State the appropriate beneficiary.12 As such, it may be argued that the monetary fine does little to alleviate the financial harm caused to victims of corporate crime. On the other hand, the equity fine is intended to go to a fund to provide compensation to victims.13 The satisfaction of the ancillary sentencing goal of compensating the victim constitutes an advantage of equity fines over cash penalties.

7.9 Additionally, equity fines are capable of ensuring that the punishment fits the crime through specific targeting of compensation. Although penalty shares would typically go to a specially established victim compensation fund, it has been suggested that, in appropriate cases, share interests could go to other bodies designated by statute as alternative beneficiaries. For example, depending on the nature of the offence, shares could be issued to a suitable consumer protection organisation, or environmental organisation. Of course, this benefit is not dependent on the fine being levied in shares – the proceeds of a monetary fine could easily be distributed in the same way. However, by establishing a specific fund for victims of crime, it is more likely that the bulk of the penalty exacted will actually go towards the restitution of victims, rather than the State’s general consolidated revenue.

if this is the case have any investors ever been compensated when asic takes a company into liquidation and sells off the assets.
it uses the legal clause above to justify the actions.
but when has asic ever used the equity gained to repay the investors.

To make things worse, the companies they take such actions against are liquidated before even being proven guilty of breaching laws of the contraventions act.

So Asic in essence is violating the investor.

do you have experience in this?

tell us what you think.

steven Geagea

if you want to gamble, be prepared to lose. if you gamble in a casino known to be crooked, expect to lose. after you lose, be quiet: bad enough to do your dough without being laughed at as well.

ASIC like most Govt Depts exists to premote it's own prosperity.Much like our competition watchdog when they let big businesses like Coles and Woolies use practises like preditory pricing to reduce competition.These big companies donate to both the major parties so don't expect their Govt regulatory bodies to have any teeth.

My mother was stung back in the early nineties by the Estate Mortage debacle.Nothing has changed.Caviat Emptor.

My advice is to trust your own judgement,invest directly in either property or shares and carefully do your homework.

One of the problems that is faced is that more regulation doesnt necessarily lead to a fairer result and in fact it can often be the opposite. An example, financial planners must now provide a Statement of Advice (at a cost) for all advice on financial products that they give. Designed to help regulate the industry. Problem is, it doesnt stop the advice being wrong (either outright wrong or wrong for the investor). Much better results can be achieved when the law is written in more general terms along principle lines, and requires compliance with the "spirit of the law" rather than the "letter of the law".

Basically, limited companies are just that. The investor can lose their investment, but no more than that. Its hard to prove civil offences a lot of the time. Even if companies are liquidated though, the offences are normally personal ones, for which the directors are personally liable - doesnt matter if company gone or not.

Also, ASIC doesnt necessarily act to put a company into liquidation, the Corporations Law requires it in certain circumstances. Dont necessarily blame the regulator - look to the legislation first.

cgal, i guess the statement of advice has this benefit: it puts the advisor on public record,and makes prosecution much easier if the facts alluded to in the advice prove to be false. this will inhibit the more expansive varieties of con artist,unless their airfare to paraguay is prepaid.