The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today announces that it has imposed a four-year ban on Mr Robert Patrick Marie, a former managing director of Theta Asset Management Ltd, the Responsible Entity of the Sterling Income Trust (SIT).

He is banned from providing any financial services. Mr Marie has also been banned from controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business and from performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business in any capacity.

The SIT, a registered managed investment scheme, was placed into external administration in 2019.

Mr Marie has been banned due to contraventions of the Corporations Act stemming from the issue, by Theta, of five defective Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs) for the SIT, under which $16,710,669 in total was raised from retail investors between 20 May 2016 and 1 May 2018.

Theta had previously been held by the Federal Court, in civil penalty proceedings commenced by ASIC, to have failed to comply with the duties imposed on a Responsible Entity by issuing the defective PDSs. Mr Marie was found to have failed to comply with his duties as a managing director, by failing to ensure Theta complied with the Corporations Act. ASIC’s banning of Mr Marie was based on the conduct of concern to the Federal Court.

ASIC’s investigation into the conduct of a number of entities and officers within the Sterling Group of companies continues.