The Federal Court today found that Master Wealth Control Pty Ltd, trading as DG Institute, breached Australian Consumer Law and that its sole Director Dominque Grubisa knowingly had an interest in the breaches, in proceedings brought by the ACCC.
DG Institute was found to have made false or misleading statements to consumers in the promotion and sale of two educational programs called Real Estate Rescue (RER) and Master Wealth Control (MWC) between April 2017 and November 2022. In that period over 3000 students enrolled in the programs and each paid between $4,500 and $9,200 to participate.
The Court found that Ms. Grubisa was knowingly concerned about DG Institute’s violations through her role in making video statements in promotional and program materials, as well as in writing, reviewing, editing and/or approving content for the materials this. The Court also found that Ms. Grubisa knew that the statements she made about both programs were in fact false and misleading.
Specifically, the Court found the following statements about the programs to be false or misleading:
- RER program students could help distressed homeowners sell their home and keep some of the equity, while if a mortgage lender repossessed the property, the homeowner would lose any remaining equity in the property—even because “banks do it” don’t give change”. In reality, a mortgagee is only entitled to the amounts owed to it, plus any reasonable collection costs.
- MWC program students could fully protect all their assets from creditors by creating a special confidential DG Institute called “Vestey Trust” using transaction documents provided by DG Institute. In fact, the transaction documents provided did not provide the level of protection promised by creditors.
- the ‘Vestey Trust’ system promoted by DG Institute had been tested and upheld as effective by the Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia in the ‘Sharrment’ case, when in fact this was not the case.
A hearing on the relief orders sought by the ACCC, including penalties, will be held at a later date. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking injunctive relief, penalties, consumer compensation, costs and an injunction against Ms Grubisa disqualifying her from managing companies.