Huljich faces criminal charges

Thursday 18th November 2010 3 Comments

The Securities Commission has confirmed it has laid criminal charges against Huljich Wealth Management director Peter Huljich.

The charges relate to the Huljich KiwiSaver Scheme promoted by Huljich Wealth Management and Peter Huljich.

The Commission alleges Peter Huljich and Huljich Wealth Management misled prospective investors by misrepresenting the investment performance of the scheme's funds in offer documents.

The documents contained graphs comparing the Huljich KiwiSaver Funds' investment performance to other competitor KiwiSaver funds but failed to disclose that the Huljich figures included related party payments made at the direction of Peter Huljich.

Those payments made a significant impact on the Huljich KiwiSaver Funds' investment performance figures.

The Commission also alleges Peter Huljich made untrue statements in the scheme's registered prospectuses which included summary financial performance information but failed to disclose the related party payments.

Criminal charges have been laid summarily under section 58(3) of the Securities Act 1978 which carries a maximum penalty of three months imprisonment or a $300,000 fine and under section 59(1)(c) of the Securities Act 1978 which carries a maximum penalty of a fine of $300,000.

The first call of the charges will be in the Auckland District Court on January 14 2011.

Comments from our readers

On 18 November 2010 at 3:09 pm Grumpy said:

I see John Banks has responded with "No investor had lost any money in relation to these allegations". So that makes it alright then John? Huljich has certainly made money because of it though.

On 18 November 2010 at 8:40 pm At grumpy said:

Actually I think Mr Banks is trying to say these actions are not comparable to other current financial firms thar are under investigation. In fact Huljich investors have benefited from the payments. Work it over "Grumpy".

On 1 December 2010 at 10:27 am Agreed said:

Huljich mislead investors by manipulating its reports to make their returns look more favourable - which may have led to more investors choosing to sign with Huljich or sign over to Huljich, resulting in Huljich generating more money than otherwise , i aggree with Grumpy