Third person sentenced for Courtenay House misconduct (ASIC, 2024)

Judgment entered

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In December 2024 ASIC announced that David Sipina, a promoter of Courtenay House, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment served as an intensive correction order for aiding the director to run an unlicensed financial services business and dealing in proceeds of crime worth $1 million or more; ASIC says he did not know it was a Ponzi scheme.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

A$34k

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

Sipina recruited and managed 215 investors and marketed the scheme online and in person between 2015 and 2017, earning about $3.9 million in commissions that were proceeds of crime. He pleaded guilty on December 20, 2024 in the Coffs Harbour District Court. The sentence is community-based, so the 36 months recorded is not custodial time.

The record showed the matter as only filed.

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.

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. 2024-12-22 ASIC media release

Primary documents

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• ASIC media release

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.