Opening statement by Peter Kell, Deputy Chairman, ASIC, to the Senate Estimates Committee, Parliament House, Canberra, 4 June 2013.

Introduction

... Thank you Chairman. I am pleased to appear before the Committee this evening.

I want to highlight one crucial issue – ASIC's actions to disrupt and block websites run by criminal syndicates engaged in investment scams.

These criminal syndicates are often based outside of Australia. They have taken many millions of dollars from thousands of Australians, often with devastating consequences.

One of ASIC's most effective tools to disrupt the websites of these criminal operators is through requesting telecom providers to block access to scam websites under s313 of the Telecommunications Act. Over the last 12 months, we have used this 10 times. We are generally quite public about this type of action as we want consumers and the media to understand the risks and the sites we are targeting. In most cases we issue media releases. We have found that quick action in this way can minimise losses.

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