Dear Australian Securities and Investments Commission,

Lawyers for ASIC have written to ASIC whistleblower, John Adams, claiming that “ASIC is not Corrupt”.

If this is the case, then ASIC would not have assisted a number of trustees in stealing superannuation death benefit entitlements from widows of fund members and grossly underpaying members of Defined Benefit superannuation fund by way of what might be termed a “Deed Substitution Fraud”.

The Commonwealth Parliament identified a “loop hole” in the law that would allow such frauds against widows and sought to close this “loop hole” by enacting the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Further MySuper and Transparency Measures) Act 2012 that required trustees of Employer-Sponsored Defined Benefit to make a copy of the original Trust Deed that constituted and established every Defined Benefit Fund that they administer available for download on the public section of their websites. Superannuation trusts, funds and schemes are legally identified by the original Trust Deed that constituted and establsihed that trust (fund).

If an amending power had been reserved in the original Trust Deed then copies of all amending Deeds (and other authorised amending Instruments) had to be made available for download as well as confirmed in the Explanatory Memorandum.

A copy of the most recent actuarial report had to be provided as well.

This Act provided similar transparency as that provided by the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Fund (PCSS) which will provide a superannuation pension to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and a survivorship pension to their widows.

None of these documents makes reference to the commercial agreement between the sponsoring- employer and the trustee which is a separate contract document.

A trustee of a Defined Benefit fund must pay superannuation benefits when they fall due based on the original Trust Deed and all legally valid Amending Deeds read as “one legal document”.

The is only one “Trust Deed” and not a multiple of “Trust Deeds”.

An example of a “Deed Substitution Fraud” “ is as follows:

The original Trust Deed of a Defined Benefit fund that was established several decades ago provide a lump sum benefit of $20,000 to a member for every year of service with the sponsoring employer.

Over the decades there were two amending Deeds executed in accordance with the conditions and restrictions of the amending power reserved in the original Trust Deed that increase the annual benefit factor from $20,000 to $22,000 and then to $24,000.

The average period of service before retiring or being retired by the employer was 25 years and there were 1000 members of this Defined Benefit fund and so the amount held on trust in the fund is $600 million.

Therefore a typical fund members would receive a lump sum benefit of $600,000 on retirement.

The sponsoring employer is taken over and a new trustee is appointed.

The trustee drafts what appears to be a legal document (Deed) where the benefit factor is stated as $18,000 for every year of service.

A typical member who now retires only receives $450,000 instead of $600,000.

The amount required to be held in the fund is now only $450 million or some $150 million less tha before.

Members who complain are show a copy of the “Latest Version of the Trust Deed” which purports to provide a benefit of $18,000 for every year of service.

Meanwhile, the white-collar criminals who were appointed as the new trustees have used “creative accounting” to transfer the surplus $150 million in the members’ fund to their own “investment company” which then transfers the $150 million to the white-collar criminals and the “investment” is then written down to zero and blamed on “adverse investment market conditions”.

If the fund members, their wives and widows can inspect the original Trust Deed and all amending Deeds by downloading them from the trustee’s website which was the intention of the Commonwealth Parliament, the fund members (and their lawyers) can easily determine that the trustee has engaged in fraudulent conduct costing each fund member who retires $150,000 in lawful benefits.

The fund members now are entitled to compensation as confirmed by a former Minister for Superannuation, the Hon Bill Shorten MP who stated in a Media Release dated 13 April 2011:

"Investors in Regulated Superannuation Funds deserve to be compensated by the Government when they lose their investments through fraud or other malfeasance by super fund trustees. I’m very pleased to be able to offer Trio investors this compensation," Mr Shorten said.

ASIC Deputy Chair, Sarah Court, in testimony before the Senate Economics Reference Committee that ASIC was placing a high priority on non-payment and delayed payments of death benefits by trustees of Regulated Superannuation Funds.

"Dodgy super funds are not above the law"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnyRa0jj...

"Labor is letting Big Super to break the law. It stinks."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmOhf7qC...

"Australia needs to get serious about corporate crime. How is the status quo OK?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoHVQLxI...

Request for Documents pursuant the Freedom of Information Act 1982:

This FOI request is for copies of documents including emails from ASIC to Senators, Members of Parliament, Parliamentary Committees or The Treasury and replies related Section 29B of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 {SIS Act } and related SIS Regulation 2.28 related to the reason ASIC has provided for granting “Relief” for over a decade to a number of trustees of employer-sponsored Defined Benefit superannuation funds.

The reason ASIC has given is as follows:

“ASIC first provided this relief by class order in 2014, and since then has extended the period of relief in successive instruments. This has been to facilitate Government consideration of industry feedback in relation to the operation of section 29QB to require potentially sensitive information in relation to the commercial terms negotiated with different employer sponsors.”

"Relief" was provided for over a decade out to 30 June 2024.

The search period is from the date the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Further MySuper and Transparency Measures) Bill 2012 was given royal assent on 03 Dec 2012 to the present.

Yours faithfully,

P.C. Sweeney