Australian Securities & Investments Commission permanently bans Noel Northcott after false fund performance reporting and misleading statements to investors

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has permanently banned Noel Northcott of Hillarys, Western Australia from the financial services industry, preventing him from providing financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, or performing any function involved in carrying on such a business. The action follows ASIC’s concerns about his involvement in the Noon Investment Fund and the Quant Fund, which used algorithms to conduct foreign exchange trading with investors’ money. ASIC found that in March and April 2022 the Noon Investment Fund lost around $11.3 million, and that Northcott sent false monthly performance statements to 42 investors indicating their investments had increased, when they had lost 90% of their value. It also found he made misleading or deceptive representations around 2023 about the Quant Fund’s performance and how long it had operated, and that he failed to understand the Australian financial services licensing and compliance regime and was not adequately trained or competent. The ban has been recorded on ASIC’s Banned and disqualified register. Northcott applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) for review and sought a stay of the ban and confidentiality directions, but the ART refused those applications on 10 October, enabling ASIC to make the banning decision public.