{"id":312167,"date":"2026-03-04T06:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312167\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T06:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:56:10","slug":"former-financial-adviser-fined-15000-investors-remain-out-of-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/312167\/","title":{"rendered":"Former financial adviser fined $15,000, investors remain out of pocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

\nDavid McEwen.
\nPhoto: Screenshot \/ YouTube<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

A former financial adviser has been convicted and fined $15,000 for breaching a banning order by the financial markets regulator, but investors remain out of pocket.<\/p>\n

David McEwen was convicted of four charges of breaching a 2023 Financial Markets Authority stop order at the Auckland District Court.<\/p>\n

He left the country in 2023, criminal charges were filed in March 2025, and was sentenced in absentia on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The convictions came after McEwen pleaded guilty in November 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He has also been banned from being a director or promoter, or being involved in the management of a New Zealand company and providing financial advice services for seven years.<\/p>\n

His application for a discharge without conviction was dismissed.<\/p>\n

The FMA earlier said its investigations uncovered McEwen made inaccurate statements about the company’s holding of shares on behalf of investors, leading to the stop order.<\/p>\n

The FMA said he breached the stop order in three ways, including offering and issuing financial products relating to an entity McEwen incorporated in Singapore.<\/p>\n

It said investors made $173,000 in payments in response to the offers.<\/p>\n

What happened to that money remains unclear, as McEwen remains out of the country and out of the FMA’s jurisdiction, with investors losing thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

He also issued units in an investment vehicle called International Opportunities Partnership, which was created after the stop order was made.<\/p>\n

The FMA said the units replaced – without investor consent – financial products that investors held relating to other entities associated with McEwen.<\/p>\n

In return, he asked investors for an administration fee. The FMA said investors paid $17,000 to McEwen for the fee.<\/p>\n

McEwen also offered and issued financial products, and restricted communications, related to a company called Agtech 3, which fell under the stop order.<\/p>\n

“We were concerned about the substance of the representations he was making about the offer of the financial products to clients,” FMA head of enforcement Margot Gatland said.<\/p>\n

“We focus our enforcement actions on preventing and addressing significant harm to consumers, markets and our financial system,” Gatland said.<\/p>\n

“Mr McEwen breached our stop order in various ways almost immediately after it was made, after he had left New Zealand.”<\/p>\n

McEwen was a business journalist prior to his investment career, and worked for well-known publications, including the Financial Times, National Business Review and Reuters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David McEwen. Photo: Screenshot \/ YouTube A former financial adviser has been convicted and fined $15,000 for breaching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-312167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312167","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=312167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}