ASIC brings criminal charges against third individual in relation to Courtenay House (2023)

Judgment entered

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In February 2023 ASIC announced criminal charges against David Sipina for his role promoting Courtenay House. He pleaded guilty and, per ASIC's release of 23 December 2024, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment served as an intensive correction order for aiding an unlicensed financial services business and dealing with proceeds of crime worth $1 million or more.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

A$810k

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in AUD. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

ASIC alleges that most of the roughly $180 million paid by about 585 investors went to pay older investors, a scheme run by Tony Iervasi, who had pleaded guilty. Sipina is alleged to have carried on the unlicensed business from June 2015 to April 2017, taken commissions that were proceeds of crime, and obtained investors' personal information on false pretences to mislead the fund's responsible entity. These are allegations at this date.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because it concerns the Courtenay House Ponzi scheme, although ASIC says the person charged here was not aware of it and the charges are for unlicensed financial services and dealing with proceeds of crime. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome: ASIC release 24-288MR, dated 23 December 2024, says Sipina pleaded guilty in the Coffs Harbour District Court on 20 December 2024 (an earlier release records a plea in March 2024) to two charges: aiding and abetting Tony Iervasi to carry on an unlicensed financial services business, and dealing with money he believed to be proceeds of crime worth $1 million or more. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment to be served by an intensive correction order. ASIC says he recruited and managed 215 investors between June 2015 and April 2017 and received about $3.9 million in commissions that were proceeds of crime, and that he was not aware the business was a Ponzi scheme. He is the third person sentenced over Courtenay House. The conviction is for unlicensed services and proceeds of crime, not for running the Ponzi scheme, which makes the Ponzi tag on this record a matter of context rather than of the charge.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2023-02-22 ASIC media release
2. 2024-12-23 Sipina sentenced: three years, intensive correction order (Coffs Harbour District Court)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release
• ASIC media release 24-288MR (sentence)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.