Can anyone explain to me why any one of the participants in the
chatroom (other than Stephen Matthews who has been restrained)
can't open a new chatroom overseas? Is the ASIC able to have an
overseas site closed down? Is the ASIC able to prevent individual
users from accessing such a site? If not, doesn't this whole
exercise seem rather silly and futile?
It seems to me that any chatroom only exists if there is a demand
for it. Pushing that demand offshore (or underground) seems
similar to the current drug enforcement policies of successive
governments. Neither have they had much success.
I would like to hear from Mr. Lapworth what his reaction would be to
the proposition that to allow such a chat room to remain open and
under the scrutiny of the ASIC would give ASIC greater possibilities
of control over the content rather than having the chat room
participants go offshore to conduct their chat and so be beyond the
reach of ASIC.
Is this the first example of an Australian government agency flexing
its impotence at the Internet a'la Singapore and China?
Russell Ashdown
On 22 Feb 99, at 14:48, Col Lapworth wrote about:
Re: "Chat Room" ordered to close
> ASIC Media Release: 99/37
> Issued on : Friday 19 February 1999
>
> INTERNET PUBLISHER STOPPED FROM GIVING INVESTMENT ADVICE
>
> The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today
> obtained injunctive relief against the publisher of an Internet site
> to prevent investment advice being provided in breach of the Corporations
> Law.
>
> Stephen Matthews is the publisher of a site called The Chimes Index
> which is located at http://www.chimes.com.au.
>
> As part of that site, Mr Matthews operates a
> ?chat room? on which he posts
> reports about securities and allows other users to publish reports about securities.
>
> Mr Matthews is not licensed to provide investment advice, and publis=
> hing securities advice on his site breaches the Corporations Law.
>
> The application for relief was heard by her Honour, Justice O?Connor in=
> the
> Federal Court.
>
> Justice O?Connor was satisfied that Mr Matthews was carrying o= n
> an investment advice business without a licence and made orders
> tha= t Mr Matthews be restrained.
>
> Mr Matthews was restrained from publishing securities reports on=
> the
> internet including his site and he was also restrained from allowing ot=
> hers to publish securities reports on his internet site.
>
> If Mr Matthews does not obey the orders he will be found to be in cont=
> empt of court.
>
> ASIC Regional Commissioner Jane Diplock said as part of ASIC?s cons=
> umer protection mandate, ASIC aims to ensure that consumers seeking
> invest= ment advice only obtain advice from licensed investment advisers.
>
> ?Regardless of whether such advice is given in an office or on=
> the
> internet, ASIC requires that investment advisers be licensed.
>
> ?ASIC will continue to monitor the internet to ensure that users co=
> mply with the law,? Ms Diplock said.
>
>
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