The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) - Te Mana Tātai Hokohoko has obtained a seven-year banning order against Peter Huljich and accepted an enforceable undertaking from Sarah Huljich (née Elder), concluding its insider conduct proceedings relating to the sale of shares in Pushpay Holdings Limited (NZX: PPH).
Mr Huljich was convicted on a charge of insider conduct on 3 November 2023. Following the Supreme Court's decision declining leave to appeal, the FMA applied to the High Court in Auckland for a banning order against him. Mr Huljich did not oppose the application.
FMA Head of Enforcement, Margot Gatland, said, "Everyone trading in our markets is entitled to do so on the same footing, without others acting while holding information the market doesn't have. Mr Huljich had such information and encouraged others to trade when that information was not generally available to the market trading on it. The seven-year ban that now concludes the FMA's proceedings over the Pushpay share sale is a significant consequence. With Ms Huljich's enforceable undertaking, this matter is at an end."
The Court has now made the following order:
Mr Huljich is prohibited from being a director or promoter of, or being in any way (directly or indirectly) concerned, or taking part, in the management of a financial markets participant (as defined in the Financial Markets Authority Act 2011), or a company that has resolved to become a financial markets participant, for a period of seven years from the date of his conviction (3 November 2023), without leave of the High Court.
The FMA also accepted an enforceable undertaking from Sarah Huljich, who was Pushpay's Head of Investor Relations at the time and admitted she ought to have known the information was material and that she helped to facilitate, and thereby encouraged trading in Pushpay shares while she held that information. She has paid $50,000 in lieu of a pecuniary penalty, and the civil proceedings against her have been discontinued.
The proceedings arose after former Pushpay cofounder and director Eliot Crowther told individuals at Pushpay in June 2018 that he was considering resigning and selling his shareholding, information the FMA considered material and not generally available to the market. Pushpay was not the subject of the FMA's investigation and was not a party to the proceedings, and Mr Crowther's own share sale was lawful.
