Roderick George Halligan pleads guilty to fraud

A Brisbane stockbroker has pleaded guilty to fraud relating to shares worth more than $1.5 million.

A banned Brisbane stockbroker has pleaded guilty to fraud relating to shares worth more than $1.5 million.

Roderick George Halligan faced Brisbane Magistrates Court today for a committal hearing.

He pleaded guilty to four accounts of fraud and one count of attempted fraud. The DDP offered no evidence on 17 charges, including fraud and forgery, which were dismissed by the court.

The court heard Halligan dishonestly applied to his own use shares belonging to one woman on dates between July 2008 and April 2019.

Banned stock broker Roderick George Halligan pleaded guilty to fraud.

On diverse dates between April and May 2019 Halligan dishonesty applied to his own use, shares belonging to a second woman.

The court heard in October 2020 Halligan attempted to dishonestly apply to his own use shares belonging to a third person.

Magistrate Michael Quinn committed Halligan, who lives in Spring Hill, to be sentenced in Brisbane’s District Court at a later date.

He was granted bail on his own undertaking with conditions including he report weekly to police and not contact his three victims.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced in March that it had permanently banned the 59-year-old from providing financial services or having any involvement in a financial services business.

The regulator said it found Halligan had transferred shares in excess of $550,000 from his clients’ accounts into the trading account of a business, in which he held an interest, without client authorisation.

He then sold these shares to the benefit of the business and himself, ASIC said.

It also found that Halligan had engaged in conduct designed to cause his clients to believe that they still had the shares he had transferred without authorisation.

At the time Halligan was an authorised representative of Australian financial services licensee BR Securities Australia Pty Ltd.

BR Securities Australia reported Halligan’s conduct to ASIC in October 2020 and reimbursed his clients for their losses before subsequently being reimbursed by Halligan.