The watchdog has banned a former director of a Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management for six years.

Australia’s financial regulator has banned a former financial advisor from the industry for six years for conduct involving the creation of a fake family office. 

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission imposed the ban on Timothy Hornibrook of Clovelly, New South Wales. Hornibrook, formerly a director and responsible manager of Australian financial services licensee Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management, was banned after ASIC found that he contravened financial services laws whilst he was a director and responsible manager, the watchdog said in a statement.

In early 2011, Hornibrook, a former co-head and head of Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management, along with some members of the MAFM sales team, conceived the concept of a fake family office, named the Brook Family Office. The sales team then used two email addresses for the BFO to extract confidential information from MAFML's competitors in the agricultural investment sector on the pretence that it was assessing potential investment opportunities for its funds under management, the regulator continued. 

Hornibrook had breached his duties as an officer of a responsible entity of a registered managed investment scheme by failing to act honestly; misusing the information he acquired as a director of MAFML in order to gain an improper advantage for himself, MAFML and/or Macquarie Crop Partners LP; and misusing his position as director of MAFML to gain an advantage for MAFML and/or MCP.

ASIC's investigations are ongoing, it added.