media release (25-119MR)

Former wealth manager sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for breaching Court orders

Published

The Federal Court has convicted former Wealth and Risk Management director, Joshua Fuoco, of contempt of court and has sentenced him to 12 months imprisonment to be suspended for two years, after finding he deliberately defied the Court’s orders made on 5 February 2018 prohibiting him from conducting or being involved in a financial services business for ten years.

In addition, Mr Fuoco will never be allowed to be involved in financial services or credit activities, following an undertaking he gave to the Court.

In 2018 Mr Fuoco was found to have engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and unconscionable conduct, and to have contravened financial services laws.

The Court held in the contempt proceeding that between March 2019 and April 2023 Mr Fuoco deliberately breached the financial services injunctions imposed on him through his involvement in five companies: State Advice, Ansa Finance, AFSL Group, About Advice, and Advice Now. Those businesses operated a similar model as that denounced by the Court in 2018, affecting hundreds of vulnerable consumers, and eroding their superannuation balances. Over $2.2 million in income was generated through the businesses.

In delivering his judgment, Justice Horan said that Mr Fuoco’s conduct was the ‘most serious incident of contempt of court in recent years’ and found Mr Fuoco guilty of all 18 charges of contempt.

His Honour found that Mr Fuoco’s conduct ‘amounted to a premediated, persistent and wilful defiance’ of the Court’s orders, and ‘constitutes an extremely serious contempt with a clear tendency to interfere with the administration of justice and the authority of the Court’.

The seriousness of Mr Fuoco’s conduct warranted a term of imprisonment, but his Honour was persuaded to give Mr Fuoco ‘one last chance’ by suspending his sentence.

ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said, ‘Mr Fuoco continued to run a financial business over a prolonged period in deliberate contempt of Federal Court orders. Today’s judgment demonstrates such brazen and intentional disregard of the law will be strongly punished. ASIC will continue to take action to ensure court orders are complied with.’

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Judgment

Background

In February 2018, the Federal Court found that Mr Fuoco’s three companies, Wealth and Risk Management Pty Ltd, Yes FP Pty Ltd (in liquidation) and Jeca Holdings Pty Ltd (in liquidation), contravened financial services laws and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and unconscionable conduct (18-033MR).

Mr Fuoco established a business in 2015 which offered cash to financially vulnerable clients, in exchange for lucrative commissions from insurance policies that the clients did not want or need, but which were a condition of obtaining the cash and which significantly eroded the clients’ superannuation balances.

From September 2017 – a few months after interlocutory injunctions were imposed against these companies – an entity in which Mr Fuoco was involved (Financial Circle) carried on substantially the same business as was operated by those entities. In November 2018 the Federal Court found that Financial Circle had engaged in various contraventions of the Corporations Act and permanently restrained it from carrying on a financial services business. The Court also ordered Financial Circle to pay civil penalties.

While Mr Fuoco was not a party to the Financial Circle proceedings, he was later found to be managing Financial Circle while he was disqualified from doing so. Charges were laid against Mr Fuoco and in February 2023 he pleaded guilty and was convicted in the Magistrates’ Court (23-032MR).

On 13 September 2023, ASIC permanently banned Mr Fuoco, pursuant to s 80 of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth), from engaging in any credit activities on the basis that he was not a fit and proper person to engage in credit activities, and was likely to contravene the credit legislation.

In December 2023, ASIC filed its contempt application in the Federal Court against Mr Fuoco in relation to his misconduct following the Court orders made in 2018 (24-010MR).

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