Market Manipulation. Search

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.

Report an error in this record (asic-24-193mr-ponzi-schemes-2024) by email

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

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
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 (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged Corporations Act s.1041G (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques Ponzi schemes

What was ordered

Civil penalty
—
Disgorgement
—
Prejudgment interest
—
Total relief
—
Alleged gain
—

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.

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.

Timeline

  1. 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.

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 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)(this record) Judgment entered

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.

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.