Lawyers acting for the Mayfair 101 private equity investment group have applied to the Federal Court this week to strike out ASIC’s case against the group’s Managing Director, James Mawhinney.
The strike-out application was filed on Tuesday and seeks to have more than 50 paragraphs, in which ASIC seeks findings of contravention, struck out of the statement of claim.
Mayfair 101 Managing Director, James Mawhinney
ASIC’s claim seeks to hold Mr Mawhinney personally liable for various alleged contraventions which are yet to be determined, including the penultimate paragraph in which ASIC seeks injunctive relief against Mr Mawhinney for dealing in financial products pursuant to section 1101B(1) of the Corporations Act. Lawyers acting for Mr Mawhinney have applied to have these claims struck out.
The claim also seeks to strike out three of the four representations relied upon by ASIC in its misleading or deceptive conduct case in 2020, in which Mayfair’s entities were found liable and issued a $30 million penalty.
Mayfair was not legally represented at the trial of the misleading or deceptive conduct matter as a consequence of orders obtained by ASIC, meaning ASIC succeeded in its case in 2021 at trial against an undefended opponent. For the first time in a court the representations are now being properly legally contested.
The representations which Mr Mawhinney’s lawyers have applied to strike out include the ‘Bank Term Deposit Representation’, the ‘No Risk of Default Representation’ and the ‘Repayment Representation’, which were relied upon by ASIC to impugn the investment group in 2020. This resulted in the derailment of the $1.6 billion Dunk Island and Mission Beach development which was set to create 10,000 jobs for Far North Queensland.
The hearing of the strike-out application is scheduled for Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 April 2024 in Melbourne’s Federal Court. It will be heard simultaneously with Mr Mawhinney’s application to have thousands of pages of evidence deemed inadmissible in the same matter.