Already a subscriber?The Federal Court has thrown out the corporate regulator’s claim that a subsidiary of Finder.com provided illegal financial advice and products, finding that the Finder Earn cryptocurrency offering did not require a financial services licence.
Justice Brigitte Markovic on Thursday dismissed ASIC’s case and ordered the corporate watchdog to pay Finder’s legal costs. “While at that point the customer may be an unsecured creditor of Finder Wallet for the balance of his or her account, the purpose for which the moneys are paid into the Finder Wallet account is to allow the customer to use Finder Wallet’s services either by investing in a particular cryptocurrency or ... by investing in the Finder Earn product.
ASIC said in a statement it will consider the judgment, noting it has 28 days to lodge an application for an appeal. “Debentures are niche products and it looks like Finder did everything they needed to. It will have cost them a lot to pull the product out of the market for this long.”