At an industry event in December 2020 a senior ASIC staff member presented Mayfair 101 as a case study of fraud. This was despite ASIC never making a case against Mayfair 101 of fraud. | Media.com

Mayfair 101

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Check out Rhys Bollen's qualifications....he's qualified to the hilt as a lawyer, and yet describes advertising as 'fraud'. 

Fraud has a specific legal meaning. It has no place in describing advertising practices.

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rhys-bollen-1a470b5/details/education/" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rhys-bollen-1a470b5/details/education/</a>

How to pick a fraud event

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A representative from ASIC revealed the corporate regulator would prefer to move quicker on identifying and mitigating fraudulent financial products, but is held back by the steps inherent in its processes.

This did not stop ASIC preparing a Public Warning Notice in less than 12 hours after Mr Hempton's 'spidey sense' email. Here's a copy of the notice.

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How to pick a fraud

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Mayfair 101 was held out to be offering fraudulent products by Rhys Bollen of ASIC at an industry event.

For more than 3 years the 'How to pick a fraud' video has been accessible from the Home page of the ProfessionalPlanner.com.au website - <a href="https://www.professionalplanner.com.au/2020/11/how-to-pick-a-fraud/" target="_blank">https://www.professionalplanner.com.au/2020/11/how-to-pick-a-fraud/</a>

<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">ASIC painted Mayfair as a ‘fraud’ at an industry event</h3>On 2 December 2020 Mr Bollen was a guest speaker at the ‘How to pick a fraud’ broadcast industry event. &nbsp;Mr Bollen labelled Mayfair a "fraud". &nbsp;Mayfair 101 was Mr Bollen’s sole case study of "fraud". &nbsp;This was done in circumstances where a trial date for this proceeding had not been set.<a href="https://vimeo.com/486677095">Watch the video</a>Mr Bollen’s presentation of Mayfair as a fraud was in the absence of:<ul><li>any evidence of fraud;</li><li>any pleaded allegations of fraud against Mayfair or Mr Mawhinney; and</li><li>a trial date for VID228 and VID524.</li></ul>Mr Bollen is a public officer. &nbsp;He a licensed solicitor in NSW. &nbsp;He holds a Bachelor of Law (Hons), Masters (Business Law), LLM (International Law) from University of Cambridge and PhD (Business Law). &nbsp;He has worked at ASIC and the Financial Conduct Authority for a combined total of more than fifteen (15) years.&nbsp;His extensive qualifications and commercial experience make him capable of discerning between fraud (which requires conscious dishonesty) and misleading or deceptive conduct (which does not).At the "How to pick a fraud" event Mr Bollen made the following statement: "...we are never as quick as we’d like to be...that’s the nature of being a regulator...we do have to follow due process...the firms that we might be concerned about we have to give an opportunity to respond and the court process as it should requires evidence and proper consideration...that is the nature of being a regulator, we do have to follow a proper process."The above statement is at odds with:<ul><li>Mr Bollen’s decision to draft a Public Warning Notice within 4 business hours of Hempton’s email;</li><li>ASIC’s discriminatory treatment of Mayfair in relation to its decision to suspend redemptions to protect investors; and</li><li>ASIC’s complete lack of engagement with Mayfair which denied Mayfair an opportunity to respond.</li></ul>On 6 May 2021 Mr Bollen made the following statement: "Mayfair was a clear case of [a firm] targeting unsophisticated, vulnerable, wholesale consumers who were seeking a regular income and higher returns."The above statement highlights ASIC’s misrepresentation of Mayfair’s business and misapprehension of its role as a regulator. &nbsp;It explains ASIC’s conduct by issuing a proceedings that had the impact of:<ul><li>alleging Mayfair specifically targeted "unsophisticated" and "vulnerable" "consumers", when it used mass media advertising which was seen by a diverse demographic of potential clients;</li><li>alleging Mayfair had a duty beyond checking if clients had been certified by accountants, when no such obligation existed at law;</li><li>ASIC berating Mayfair for accepting monies from investors who qualified in line with legislation, when ASIC considered the legislation to be inadequate so imposed its own views of the legislation that did not exist at law;</li><li>Mayfair being required to know of and adhere to an arbitrary, unlegislated version of the "wholesale" investor definition, when no such definition exists at law;</li><li>Mayfair being denied the opportunity to take corrective action to protect its investors if ASIC’s views of the law were in fact correct (which they were not);</li><li>It being implicit in the proceeding that it was Mayfair’s role to determine the level of financial literacy of clients even in circumstances where Mayfair held a license to only give general advice, and where no such obligation existed at law.</li></ul>

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At an industry event in December 2020 a senior ASIC staff member presented Mayfair 101 as a case study of fraud. This was despite ASIC never making a case against Mayfair 101 of fraud.