{"id":311965,"date":"2026-03-04T03:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311965\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T03:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:53:08","slug":"former-financial-adviser-david-mcewen-fined-15k-banned-for-7-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311965\/","title":{"rendered":"Former financial adviser David McEwen fined $15k, banned for 7 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

McEwen previously sent the court correspondence from Lithuania<\/a>. Defence counsel Karl Trotter today said McEwen was still overseas.<\/p>\n

Judge Lance said McEwen had provided an affidavit setting out financial means.<\/p>\n

It said McEwen had no real estate, no assets, no savings, was in arrears to Inland Revenue, and \u201cin poor health physically and mentally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Sam McMullan said the accuracy of details in the affidavit was hard to confirm.<\/p>\n

Judge Lance asked how he was supposed to assess that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have helped if he had turned up,\u201d McMullan replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t respond to claims his own referees made … one of them talks about a $250,000 investment that\u2019s been made with Mr McEwen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said McEwen was not obliged to be in court.<\/p>\n

McEwen told the court he earned about $50,000 a year with a small firm in Europe and had a subscription newsletter.<\/p>\n

Victim: We trusted him<\/p>\n

A victim impact statement was read out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe trusted him because of his experience and knowledge. He was also a guest speaker on a breakfast radio show,\u201d wrote a woman aged 62.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur investment went from $33,000 to $15,000,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Instead of bailing out, the woman succumbed to McEwen\u2019s overtures and handed over another $12,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe money completely disappeared … how could we have been so stupid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid McEwen, pictured in 2007. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

She was now anxious, constantly checking accounts, and did not trust financial advisers.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cRemorse, David? There is none.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court heard that when the woman challenged McEwen about the failed investment, he told her something along the lines of: \u201cOh yeah, sorry about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned by your pathetic response,\u201d the woman added in her statement.<\/p>\n

She said McEwen had continued to bombard her with cold calls, trying to sell more failed products.<\/p>\n

\u2018Corrosive\u2019 behaviour<\/p>\n

Judge Lance said McEwen\u2019s offending was corrosive to the integrity of New Zealand\u2019s financial markets.<\/p>\n

The court heard another aggravating feature was the scale of the offending, with multiple investors involved.<\/p>\n

The judge said the targets were vulnerable, and McEwen had promoted financial products by making misstatements. <\/p>\n

Judge Lance said the value of assets McEwen cited was unsupported, and he\u2019d requested an \u201cadministration fee\u201d from clients.<\/p>\n

The court heard premeditated offending involved McEwen offering and issuing financial products relating to Cosmopolitan Holdings Pte, incorporated in Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal gain was the motivator,\u201d Judge Lance added, saying McEwen acquired $183,046.49.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid McEwen at the Metro relaunch party in 2009. Photo \/ Norrie Montgomery<\/p>\n

McEwen, in an affidavit, said he had already suffered consequences, and his reputation had been damaged.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said a fine of $150,000 to $200,000 would be appropriate.<\/p>\n

But the judge said he had to take McEwen\u2019s affidavit into account.<\/p>\n

The Crown suggested the gravity of offending was at a medium level, and the defence said it was low.<\/p>\n

Judge Lance said the defence argued McEwen\u2019s offending \u201cdid not involve dishonesty or misappropriation and the total was modest in the FMA context\u201d.<\/p>\n

McEwen had no prior convictions, and the court heard one of his investors was still supportive.<\/p>\n

McEwen was convicted and fined $15,000.<\/p>\n

He was banned from being a company director and from providing financial advice services for seven years.<\/p>\n

Previous investor: \u2018Betrayed\u2019<\/p>\n

A previous investor told the Herald he lost money to investments with McEwen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI invested in several of his promotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he never got a return.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid McEwen has been banned for seven years under the Financial Markets Conduct Act. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n

He said the $15,000 fine was \u201cbloody ridiculous\u201d.<\/p>\n

The investor said he emailed McEwen and told him: \u201cI\u2019ve never met such an unscrupulous person as you. You betrayed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said McEwen replied: \u201cI am sorry you have taken that view. I don\u2019t believe I did anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

McEwen told the man some of the allegations were \u201canother FMA character assassination\u201d.<\/p>\n

The previous investor said McEwen came across as a friendly, jovial man who promoted himself on the radio, in newspapers, and at meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just kept promising and promising. You think he\u2019s an honest guy, and unfortunately, it all turned to custard.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Weekes<\/a> is a business journalist covering aviation and court. He has previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McEwen previously sent the court correspondence from Lithuania. Defence counsel Karl Trotter today said McEwen was still overseas.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[42918,6935,74,19092,26977,1558,138,5767,6284,169665,1644,19631,2082,2740,133365,23847,111,139,69,3236,26481,4578,2687,5828,6923,102,1530],"class_list":["post-311965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-15k","tag-adviser","tag-after","tag-assets","tag-banned","tag-been","tag-business","tag-convicted","tag-david","tag-elgar","tag-financial","tag-fined","tag-for","tag-former","tag-fraction","tag-mcewen","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-overseas","tag-prosecutors","tag-savings","tag-saying","tag-wanted","tag-what","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}