High-flying trading boss hit with 16 charges

The once high-flying boss of finance house Berndale Capital Securities has been charged with 16 offences for misusing as much as $1 million in customer funds while operating the trading house.

Berndale was at the centre of an investigation by this masthead in 2020. Before its 2018 collapse, the group was the fourth-largest trader of high-risk financial products called contracts for difference, and was led by Stavro D’Amore, whose social media pages are littered with photos of him with colourful characters including Mick Gatto.

Its collapse left its clients short more than $5 million.

D’Amore has been charged with five offences of dishonestly using his position as a director and five counts of dishonest conduct in the course of operating a financial services business, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said in a statement on Friday.

The musclebound business boss has also been charged with four counts of making a false or misleading statement in a document issued to ASIC, one count of misleading Berndale’s auditor and one offence of making a false statement to an ASIC investigation.

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Former Berndale director Daniel Kirby has also been charged with five offences over his dealings at the trading house. This includes two counts of dishonest conduct while operating a financial services business and one count of dishonestly using his position as a director and one count of misleading an auditor. Kirby has also been charged with using fabricated evidence.

The charges were laid two years after a lengthy public examination in the Federal Court by Berndale’s liquidators at Cor Cordis. Those examinations revealed an extraordinary tale of missing money from Swiss bank accounts and Berndale’s impressive collection of high-end cars, including McLarens and Porsches and unusual property investments.

ASIC alleges that D’Amore and Kirby each transferred Berndale company funds for their own benefit including, in the case of D’Amore, property purchases.