Hutchison and Australian Securities and Investments Commission

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application by Mr. Robert Hutchison (the Applicant) seeking a review of a decision by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to permanently ban him from providing financial services. The substantive hearing of this review had already taken place. The Applicant subsequently made further requests, including a freedom of information request for additional documents and a request to re-open the hearing.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether ASIC was required to identify all documents it intended to admit into evidence at the outset of the hearing, and whether the Applicant was entitled to further relief based on his assertions about certain notes allegedly made by an ASIC employee. The Applicant also sought to extend the time for filing submissions in reply to ASIC's closing submissions.

Deputy President Boyle P noted that the Applicant's premise regarding the existence of specific client notes was unsupported by evidence. The Tribunal affirmed that such documents, if they existed and were relevant, would have been producible under section 37 of the AAT Act, but none were produced. The Tribunal therefore refused the Applicant's request to re-open the hearing based on this premise.

The Tribunal ordered that the time for the Applicant to file and serve submissions in reply to ASIC's closing submissions be extended to 11 April 2018.