ASIC bans lawyer who provided wealth management courses

Staff Writer

Financial Newswire

5 April 2022

A lawyer who provided training courses and services covering asset protection and wealth management has been banned for four years by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

ASIC announced today that it had banned Dominique Grubisa, the Sydney-based chief executive and director of DG Institute Pty Ltd from engaging in credit activity, providing financial services, performing any function in a credit entity or controlling a credit entity or financial services business for four years.

It said Grubisa was the a lawyer and the CEO of the DGI group of companies which included DG Institute and DGI Wealth Pty Ltd which provided training courses and services covering asset protection and wealth management which were delivered through life seminars and broadcast online.

ASIC said it had found that Grubisa had:

• Represented that she and her company DGI Wealth held an Australian financial services licence and Australian credit licence when neither she nor DGI Wealth held those licences,
• Represented that she was an ‘ASIC licenced debt specialist’, despite no such licence existing at that time,
• Failed to rectify these misrepresentations despite being made aware they were false,
• Was in the habit of stating she held licences when she did not and had a tendency to embellish her qualification to create credibility,
• Encouraged her students to use data from the Family Court list for an improper purpose, such as to identify people in financial distress, with the hope of buying property under value,
• Has a habit of not telling the truth, and
• Failed to conduct herself with the professionalism of someone providing financial and credit services

ASIC also found that Grubisa is not a fit and proper person to engage in financial services or credit activities and is likely to continue to contravene financial services and credit law.