The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has banned Yossef Ashkenazi, the former director of AGM Markets, a foreign exchange and derivatives trading house, from providing financial services for eight years.
Ashkenazi was found to have “had a key role regarding AGM’s financial services business and had been involved in the contravention of a financial services law, namely AGM’s contravention of engaging in unconscionable conduct in connection with financial services”.
ASIC also deemed Ashkenazi “not adequately trained or not competent” and “likely to contravene a financial services law”.
He was the only Australian resident director and chief executive of AGM until April 2018.
Under Australian law, Ashkenazi has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review ASIC’s ban.
Licence cancelled
Earlier this month ASIC cancelled AGM’s licence after it found the company followed a business model that disregarded key conduct requirements as well as being “involved [in] core elements of unconscionability and unmanaged conflicts of interest”.
ASIC’s investigation found AGM was not licensed to provide financial product advice about securities and superannuation interest, but did so, regardless, and that it made representations to clients that were misleading or deceptive, among a list of other charges.
AGM Markets has been authorised and regulated by Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission since 2011,
