Former Courtenay House director sentenced to 11 years imprisonment (ASIC, 2024)
Judgment entered
Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.
In September 2024 ASIC announced that Tony Iervasi, former director of Courtenay House, was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court to 11 years' imprisonment with a seven-year non-parole period for dishonest conduct in running what the court and ASIC called a Ponzi scheme.
The record
| Agency | ASIC |
|---|---|
| Release number | 24-193MR |
| Date filed | 2024-09-02 |
| Status | judgment |
| Criminal parallel | Yes: sentenced (Tony Iervasi), Supreme Court of New South Wales, 2024-09-02 |
| Sentence | 11 years |
| Defendants | Tony Iervasi |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Corporations Act s.1041G |
| Techniques | Ponzi schemes |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- —
- Disgorgement
- —
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- —
- Alleged gain
- —
What is alleged to have happened
The judge took into account about 6.5 years of offending, the number of victims, a total net loss to victims of $54 million and about $12 million dishonestly obtained for his own benefit, and allowed a significant discount for the guilty plea. He had pleaded guilty to four offences of dishonest conduct under section 1041G of the Corporations Act and one of operating without a licence.
The record showed the outcome as unknown with no sentence recorded.
This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because ASIC or the sentencing court describes new investors' money being used to pay earlier investors. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.
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
- 2024-09-02 ASIC media release
Primary documents
Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.
Same matter
The library links these 5 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.
| Date filed | Agency | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-11-30 | ASIC | ASIC v. Courtenay House (ponzi schemes, 2021) | Judgment entered |
| 2022-11-08 | ASIC | Former Courtenay House director pleads guilty to conducting $180 million Ponzi scheme (ASIC, 2022) | Judgment entered |
| 2022-12-14 | ASIC | Former Courtenay House contractor pleads guilty (ASIC, 2022) | Judgment entered |
| 2023-05-08 | ASIC | Former Courtenay House contractor sentenced (ASIC, 2023) | Judgment entered |
| 2024-09-02 | ASIC | Former Courtenay House director sentenced to 11 years imprisonment (ASIC, 2024) | Judgment entered |
Related actions
Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.
| Action | Agency | Filed | Technique | Penalty | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEC v. Mark D. Hanf and Hoai-Nam Chu Phan (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-09-04 | Ponzi Schemes | — | settled |
| SEC v. Leor Moshe, Jacob Goldman, Isaac Odes (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-08-13 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| CFTC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026) | CFTC | 2026-08-11 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| SEC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher A. Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-08-11 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| SEC v. Aras Investment Business Group S.A.P.I. de C.V. and others (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-07-24 | Ponzi Schemes | $449k | judgment |
| CFTC v. Trevor L. Vernon and Argent Capital Management LLC (ponzi schemes, 2026) | CFTC | 2026-07-07 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |