The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has permanently banned Brian Jacques Creigh, the director of investment company Panacea Capital, from providing financial services or engaging in a business of financial service.
ASIC has announced that Creigh had been banned from such activities as he operated the Panacea Capital Cryptocurrency Investment Fund without a license from April 2021 until June 2022. He had also lied about it being authorised under an Australian Financial Services licence (AFSL).
Creigh misled investors into investing into the fund through giving them fact sheets that gave the impression that Panacea Capital provided a capital guarantee on the investment and was undertaking trading strategies being undertaken by an overseas fund, that the fund had been operating since 2016 and had targeted returns of 120% to 150%, and that Panacea Capital had multiple teams.
As all the statements were found to be misleading, ASIC determined that Creigh had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct. The fact sheets were also found to have contained information that was given to Creigh by third parties associated with Liquid Assets Group (LAG).
Creigh was discovered to have transferred the invested funds to invest in the LAG fund, which had turned out to be an investment scam that caused investors to lose $7.7 million.
ASIC also found that Creigh was not properly trained because he was not able to aptly react to the signs that he was dealing with scammers and that he was not fit to engage in financial services due to his dishonest actions as well as lack of integrity, trustworthiness, and judgement.
Creigh had been in his position as director of Panacea Capital since September 2015. In August 2016, he became its sole director and shareholder. The firm was a corporate authorized representative of AFS licensee Drashta Capital Pty Ltd from November 2016 until July 2018 but after that, it had not held an AFSL and was not considered to be an authorised representative under an AFSL.
Creigh will be able to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
