The nation’s market regulator filed a petition, which an Australian Federal Court granted, asking for three experts from McGrathNicol, an independent advisory and restructuring firm, to receive the approximately US$41 million in digital assets that over 450 Australians had invested in the NGS group of blockchain mining companies.
The sole directors of NGS Crypto, NGS Digital, and NGS Group, Brett Mendham, Ryan Brown, and Mark Ten Caten, are the targets of civil actions that the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announced on Friday. Additionally, Mendham is prohibited from leaving Australia.
ASIC said that the companies had violated Australian law by offering financial services without obtaining an Australian financial services licence, which led to the court order.
“ASIC alleges that the NGS Companies target Australian investors to invest in blockchain mining packages with fixed-rate returns, encouraging them to use funds transferred from regulated super funds to self-managed super funds (SMSFs) and then converted into cryptocurrency,” the authority stated.
A restructuring company’s involvement does not always indicate that the companies have failed. ASIC stated that designating a receiver was the best course of action to safeguard the assets since it was worried the monies would disappear.
While it continues to investigate, ASIC has not sought an outright ban on the companies but only interim and final injunctions preventing them from operating without a license.