Australia’s corporate regulator says the government is dropping insider trading charges against the former finance chief of failed media and tech firm Big Un.
On Monday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced that government prosecutors have decided to “discontinue proceedings” against Andrew Corner, who previously served as CFO of Big Un, parent of the now-shuttered Big Review TV. The latest turn in the case came when a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict after a five-week case, according to a June 1 news release issued by ASIC.
“ASIC considers the matter finalized,” the agency said in the release.
For Corner, the decision marks the end of a winding, yearslong saga at Big Un, which Australian regulators previously described as “one of the most high-profile tech sector collapses in 2018.”
In June 2023, ASIC first announced insider trading allegations against Corner. At the time, the commission said that he was “in possession of inside information in late 2017 when he procured two private companies to sell 1.7 million Big Un shares” for over 5 million Australian dollars.
“The information that Mr. Corner allegedly possessed related to a funding arrangement between Big Un’s subsidiary, Big Review TV Limited and Sydney-based financier, First Class Capital,” ASIC said at the time. “Big Un was one of the top performing shares listed on the ASX in 2017. Its shares were suspended from trading in February 2018 after information about Big Un’s funding arrangement with First Class Capital was released.”
While Corner’s charges have been dropped, Big Un’s former CEO Richard Evans pleaded guilty to one count of “communicating insider information” in a Sydney court last month. ASIC said that Evans shared inside information about the company with shareholders in 2017, “when he ought reasonably to have known the shareholder would be likely to trade Big Un shares and options.”
“The inside information concerned the number of customers who had been onboarded to purchase Big Un’s promotional ‘TV Show’ package at a cost of (AU)$12,000, together with a (AU)$20 million funding arrangement with ‘Finstro’, a product of Sydney-based financier First Class Capital, which allowed customers to make this purchase on deferred payment terms,” ASIC said in an April 10 news release.
A sentencing hearing for Evans is set for August, according to ASIC.
