Publisher fined over misleading article

An online financial publisher has been fined $600,000 over a misleading article suggesting consumers could mimic the performance of the Australian government's investment fund.

Port Phillip Publishing agreed to pay the penalty to settle the corporate regulator's civil case against the company and its former director, CEO and publisher Kristan Sayce, who was fined $50,000.

The case centred on an article published on two PPP websites and emailed to 200,000 subscribers in late 2017, promoting an investment strategy for consumers to "piggyback" or mimic the performance of the Australian government's Future Fund.

The article and promotional letter included misleading testimonials from investors who had not actually adopted the investment strategy, the Federal Court was told on Thursday.

A guide to piggybacking the Future Fund - a $162 billion fund established to strengthen the Australian government's long-term financial position - was also sent to hundreds of people who paid PPP's $49 subscription fee.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission barrister Nina Moncrief said the promo letter and guide were targeted at retiree investors and people approaching retirement.

The misleading representations included that investors could receive regular monthly income of $540 to $6667, without disclosing that they had to invest $154,000 to $1.9 million to generate those returns.

Ms Moncrief said investors could not in fact mimic the performance of the Future Fund, which had access to strategies and markets not available to individuals.

"There is no evidence of anyone suffering actual loss due to the promo letter and guide," she said.

"However the parties jointly submit that the investment strategy was likely to have generated lower returns for investors and to have exposed them to a greater level of risk."

PPP's barrister Nicholas De Young said it was a real and considered investment strategy.

"(But) the vice is its inability to deliver the same level of risk and exposure as the Future Fund."

Mr De Young said the testimonials were real and came from people who invested in some of the assets used in the promotion but the representation was an overstatement as they never adopted the investment strategy.

PPP, which is licensed to provide general financial advice to investors, made about $75,000 in revenue from the publications through subscriptions.

Mr De Young noted the contraventions of the law were not deliberate.

Barrister Caryn van Proctor said Mr Sayce supervised and reviewed the document that was authored by someone else but accepted responsibility as the reviewer and publisher.

Mr Sayce, who resigned from PPP in May, was disqualified from managing a corporation for 12 months.