Former Trio director enters EU

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) continued its actions with respect to the collapse of Trio/Astarra last week with former Trio Capital director Kurt Groenveld entering into an enforceable undertaking with the regulator.

Announcing the enforceable undertaking, APRA said Groenveld was a non-executive director of Trio from November 2005 to April 2007, prior to Trio's collapse in 2009.

The regulator said it had pursued the enforceable undertaking because it was concerned that Groeneveld might have contravened the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 by failing to carry out his duties properly as a director of a superannuation trustee.

It said Groeneveld had acknowledged APRA's concerns and had undertaken not to act as a trustee or as a responsible officer of a body corporate — that is a trustee, investment manager or custodian of an APRA-regulated superannuation entity — for a period of three years and six months.

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The APRA announcement said the regulator's concerns about Groeneveld included that during his tenure as a board member of Trio:

— There was a failure by the Trio board to cause Trio to cease making investments with related-party investment managers and in related-party investments, and to redeem existing investments that had been made with related-party investment managers and in related party investments where:

* There were liquidity risks associated with the investments;

* The investments had been made on the basis of insufficient due diligence and in the absence of independent recommendations;

* There was inadequate monitoring in connection with the performance of the related-party investment managers and in respect of the related-party investments; and

* Further investments were made with the related-party investment managers and in the related party investments.

It said the superannuation entities' investments in these related-party investments had not been able to be redeemed and that the Acting Trustee appointed to the Trio superannuation entities — ACT Super Management Pty Limited — did not expect that the investments would be recovered.