Dear Australian Securities and Investments Commission,

Warren Day, Executive Director, Assessment and Intelligence, testified before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on 15 July 2020.

Mr Day testified in response to a question from Senator Pratt:

“None of ASIC’s investigations are on pause because of COVID or pandemic issues.”

Mr Day also provided written testimony to the former Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics in a letter dated 5 September 2018 {ASIC Ref CCU-18\0397} which is now relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to 1 July 2019 ASIC staff were subject to the Public Sevice Act 1999 and subsection 13(9) states:

“ (9) An APS employee must not provide false or misleading information in response to a request for information that is made for official purposes in connection with the employee's APS employment.”

In his letter dated 5 September 2018 Mr Day makes the following representation to the former Committee Chair:

“We also understand that Mr Sweeney has attempted to challenge his superannuation payout in the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal, but the Tribunal did not find in his favour.”

The Tribunal made NO ruling on my “superannuation payout” as alleged by Mr Day.

I had alleged in 2007 that I suspected that invalid amendments had been made to the original Trust Deed which would not only have affected my benefit payment but the benefit payments to all fund members.

Subsection 14(6) of the SRC Act provides:

(6) The Tribunal cannot deal with a complaint under this section that relates to the management of a fund as a whole.

The SCT advised me to contact APRA and lodge a complaint about suspect amending Deeds. The SCT had no jurisdiction to investigate such a complaint.

On contacting APRA, APRA advised me to contact ASIC in order to obtain evidence to support these suspicions.

I contacted ASIC on 30 March 2009 as confirmed by the letter from Greg Hackett dated 22 April 2009 {ASIC Ref 15476/09} in which Mr Hacket states:

“In your letter of 31 March 2009, you request ASIC’s assistance to compel the Trustee to provide you with a copy of the Trust Deed that was in place on 25 March 1985. You state that you will then be able to obtain independent legal advice about your entitlements.”

A decade later ASIC is yet to compel the Trustee to provide a copy of the original Trust Deed and all amending Deeds executed on or before 25 March 1985, even though ASIC gave an undertaking to the honourable Justice Kenny in the Federal Court {VID 323/2011} that ASIC would investigate allegations of serious misconduct related to this Defined Benefit occupational pension scheme.

The documents I seek are copies of any correspondence between ASIC and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal on which Mr Day would have based his representation to the previous Chair of the Standing Committee on Economics in Mr Day’s letter of 5 September 2018

Yours faithfully,

Phillip Sweeney