08-96 Former employee of Adelaide broking firm sentenced to four years jail
Friday 9 May 2008
Mr Kym Andrew Sellers of Morphettville in South Australia was today sentenced to four years jail with a two-year non-parole period following an ASIC investigation.
On 7 April 2008, Mr Sellers, 32, pleaded guilty to 16 charges of dishonestly using his position as a designated trading representative with Taylor Collison Limited to obtain more than $441,000.
The charges followed ASIC’s investigation into the unauthorised sales of shares owned by retail clients of Taylor Collison by Mr Sellers, with the intention of gaining the proceeds of those sales for his personal use.
Mr Sellers used share trading accounts set up in the name of a friend to transfer and sell overseas shares that were held on trust by Taylor Collison, without any authorisation from Taylor Collison or the clients for whom they were held.
Mr Sellers used his position at Taylor Collison to falsify internal records relating to the ownership of the shares and created fictitious buy and sell orders that attributed the proceeds to a friend’s account. Mr Sellers sold the shares in 16 separate transactions over a two and a half year period with the proceeds generally being paid to the friend's account and then remitted to his own bank account. On two occasions the proceeds were used to repurchase shares sold in earlier fraudulent transactions.
Approximately 12 clients of Taylor Collison were affected by Mr Seller’s actions. Taylor Collison notified ASIC of the breach by Mr Sellers and has repurchased the shares sold by Mr Sellers at a cost of more than $492,000.
The District Court also made a reparation order requiring Mr Sellers to repay Taylor Collison $492,183.67, the amount it spent repurchasing the shares that Mr Sellers had fraudulently sold.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions prosecuted the matter.
Background
In April, ASIC permanently banned Mr Sellers from providing financial services after deciding he was unlikely to comply with financial services laws in the future.
ASIC Website: Printed 02/09/2010
