ASIC bans ex-PwC partner Peter Collins for eight years
The former PwC Australia partner at the heart of the firm’s tax leaks scandal has been banned from providing financial services for eight years.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said Peter Collins was “not a fit and proper person to provide financial services” and that it was in the public interest for him to be barred from working in the sector for a period.
Peter Collins, former head of international tax for PwC Australia.
ASIC found that Mr Collins, of Sandringham, Victoria, had “disclosed confidential information he obtained in his roles as a tax adviser to the Commonwealth Treasury and the Australian Board of Taxation”.
Mr Collins was an authorised representative of Australian financial services licensee PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities from March 1, 2004, to July 14, 2006, and again from December 9, 2013, to October 6, 2022.
“For the duration of his ban, Mr Collins cannot provide financial services, control an entity that carries on a financial services business or perform any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business,” ASIC said in a statement published on Friday afternoon.
ASIC deputy chairman Sarah Court earlier told the joint parliamentary committee on corporations and financial services that Mr Collins did not take up the 48-hour grace period to appeal against the decision or apply for a suppression order of the finding.
ASIC deputy chairman Sarah Court. Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Collins can apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Ms Court said ASIC was now working through the list of about 160 PwC personnel who also had financial service licences through PwC Securities “to ascertain whether or not any of those persons were
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