Gun for hire company director handed community sentence for FSPR breaches
3 Mar, 2021 04:40 AM
5 minutes to read
Michael Reps, the NZ-based director of Pegasus Markets Ltd, says he wants to pay back his debt to society. Photo / Sam Hurley
Michael Reps, the NZ-based director of Pegasus Markets Ltd, says he wants to pay back his debt to society. Photo / Sam Hurley
A director of a derivatives trading firm has been described as a gun for hire whose actions risked damaging New Zealand s reputation as a safe place to do business. Pegasus Markets Ltd and its NZ-based director Michael Reps were criminally charged in 2018 by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) with breaching the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act (FSP Act).
The FMA believed Pegasus’ continued pretence that it was registered would have misled overseas investors into thinking Pegasus was regulated in New Zealand, which had an international reputation as having a safe, highly regulated financial services sector. The FMA said offending like Reps’ threatened to damage New Zealand’s reputation as a safe place to do business. The FMA described Reps as a “passive” director and a “gun for hire”, saying he had been director of more than 90 companies, some of which had been removed from the Financial Service Providers Register by the FMA. The Companies Office showed Reps was a current, or former director, of 115 companies.
Michael Reps, the New Zealand-based director of Pegasus Markets Limited, has been sentenced to two months' community detention and 90 hours' community.
Broking firm Pegasus Markets fined $200,000 for blatant financial register breaches
11 Jan, 2021 07:32 PM
4 minutes to read
A judge says Pegasus Markets offending risked undermining NZ s financial markets regime and reputation. Photo / Greg Bowker
A judge says Pegasus Markets offending risked undermining NZ s financial markets regime and reputation. Photo / Greg Bowker
A derivatives broking and trading firm has been fined $200,000 for what a judge described as deliberate and blatant lies involving New Zealand s Financial Service Providers Register. In what is just one of a handful such prosecutions in the country, Pegasus Markets Ltd was charged by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) in February 2018 with breaching the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act (FSP Act).