Court dismisses charges against former Macquarie adviser

The case against former Macquarie financial adviser Warren Scott Acworth on a number of dishonesty offences has been dismissed.

Acworth had been charged with 27 offences, including:

• 16 counts of making false or misleading statements contrary to sections 1041E(1) and 1311(1) of the Corporations Act;
• 6 counts of making a statement that was false contrary to section 64 of the ASIC Act (Cth); and
• 5 counts of fraud contrary to section 408C(1)(e) of the Criminal Code (Qld).

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said the prosecution was discontinued after a mention in the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court on 3 October 2024, where the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) offered no evidence and the Court dismissed all charges and discharged Acworth.

The former adviser had initially been charged following an ASIC investigation, and first appeared in the Magistrate’s Court on 30 October 2020.

After this initial appearance, the case had been adjourned 20 times over the following four years before finally returning to court this week.

In February 2020, ASIC banned Acworth was banned following an investigation into his conduct between December 2015 and May 2018 while working as an adviser with Macquarie Equities Limited.

The regulator said at the time that Acworth had misrepresented to his client the value of the client’s portfolio on 19 separate occasions, engaged in trading without the proper authority of the client, and transferred $185,000 between the client’s accounts without authority.

Based on this conduct, ASIC also found that Acworth was not of good fame and character to provide financial services.