What we learned, Thursday 15 February
We will wrap up the live blog. Here are the major points from today:
The prime ministers of Australia, Canada and NZ issued a joint statement saying they were ‘gravely concerned’ about Israeli plans for a ground offensive in Rafah.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to 4.1% as the treasurer warned the country was entering into a period of economic uncertainty.
A new taskforce has been set up in New South Wales to support the Environment Protection Authority’s criminal investigation into the widespread use of mulch found to be contaminated with asbestos.
Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong announced another $50m in funding for Ukraine.
NSW Health has warned of high-dose MDMA tablets being found containing around twice the average dose of other MDMA tablets found in recent circulation.
The prime minister ruled out a suggestion to random breath-test MPs.
Anthony Albanese announced his engagement to partner Jodie Haydon.
Until tomorrow, have a safe evening.
Updated
‘Amorphous global scam’: Asic aware of HyperVerse complaints in 2020, Senate hears
Australian Securities and Investments Commission deputy chair Sarah Court has told Senate estimates that the corporate regulator was aware of complaints about the HyperVerse crypto scheme as early as 2020, saying it had information about the “scam unfolding” at that time.
HyperVerse, the subject of a Guardian Australia investigation, has been named in US court proceedings as a “pyramid and Ponzi scheme” that allegedly defrauded investors globally of US$1.89bn and which operated from 2020 to 2022. It was allegedly operated by Sam Lee and Ryan Xu, two of the directors of the collapsed Australian crypto company Blockchain Global which owes creditors $58m.
Court confirmed that the corporate regulator referred information relating to HyperVerse to Victoria Police in 2020, however the referral was not acted upon, with Police referring the case back to the regulator in 2022.
“We became aware of complaints about HyperVerse … through 2020 [as] we saw information about this scam unfolding,” Court told Senate estimates.
She said that the Hyper Tech group operated an “amorphous global scam”.
This group that we might broadly call the Hypertech group … we understand was an offshore, crypto, effectively a pyramid scheme, that was set up in 2020 and there’s been losses estimated in very significant amounts globally.
In effect, in our view, that HyperVerse group is a scam.
Court was also asked why Asic had advised liquidators that it did not intend to take action against Xu and Lee after they were referred in the liquidator’s report for alleged potential breaches of the corporations act.
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg asked: “Have you taken action against these directors?”
In response, Court said: “Not yet.” She added that Asic was now assessing a “detailed” report from the liquidator received in October.
Updated
