Deceitful Dominique Grubisa doubles down despite incompetence claims

Shameless spruiker Dominique Grubisa will not stop deceiving, as IA reports — yet again!

DECORATED CONSUMER advocate Carolyn Bond AO, commented on her blog, thenaysayer.net, on 10 April:

‘When your barrister’s strongest argument in your defence is that you are incompetent, you’re in trouble.’

When you keep doubling down, you might be in worse trouble. That, Dominique Grubisa is doing.

In the hearing of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) case against Dominique Grubisa and her company, Master Wealth Control Pty Ltd (MWC), Gregory Sirtes SC, Grubisa’s senior counsel, put the following to Justice Ian Jackman:

“May I make the submission that it appears to us that your Honour is being asked to choose between two starkly contrasting positions, which is one that Ms Grubisa is shrewd, calculating and ultimately dishonest, or one where she’s — she was relevantly, in regard to these documents, incompetent, despite best intentions.”

ACCC ends Grubisa's fraud and deceptions — and vindicates IA's long investigations

The Federal Court says two programs sold by Dominique Grubisa’s company involved false claims and she was knowingly involved.

Sirtes pushed on with oral submissions suggesting that Grubisa was incompetent but that her incompetence was not to be treated as “being so blithe that she [was] aware of her own incompetence, such that it was reflected in dishonesty”.

Grubisa’s business had received complaints about her claims. And her solicitors were put on notice of these false claims. Grubisa ignored them and doubled down.

In correspondence with her lawyers in July 2019 the following was asked:

‘...it appears that clients are advised that the mere grant of an equitable mortgage with no actual loan is effective to “soak up all the equity” so that the client becomes “a man of straw”. How does your client say that in the absence of an actual loan that this is the case?’

The correspondence went on to say:

‘It is not trite to say that an assignment of future property has no effect at law or in equity when there is no consideration for the assignment. On what basis does your client say the assignment of future income and rent and income is effective?’

The very problems raised in the ACCC case.

Indeed, in submissions in the hearing, Sirtes said [IA emphasis]:

“It would be amazing that... and it would be, your Honour, perverse and outrageous if armed with knowledge that this simply didn’t work that she then took no steps [to fix the problem].”

Grubisa doubles down (again) after ACCC hearing

Dominique Grubisa is yet again being a bit loose with the truth, as IA reports.

Such as the knowledge that came to her attention no later than July 2019? Grubisa shamelessly doubled down.

In yet another act of utter shamelessness, Grubisa was back flogging asset protection to her students on 4 May, this time on behalf of Assure Lawyers. The sole director of Assure Lawyers, James Lyons, is representing Grubisa and MWC in the ACCC proceedings in his individual capacity trading as Murphy Lyons Lawyers.

Lyons is representing Grubisa in relation to false claims made by her, yet Grubisa is spruiking on behalf of Assure Lawyers and making false claims, apparently on its behalf. Who is representing whom? Why is Lyons allowing Grubisa to make representations on behalf of Assure Lawyers?

This is utterly farcical. The blame for this farce lies squarely with the Law Society of NSW which has failed the public for years in not bringing this to an end. It has allowed thousands of people to be given false (and potentially uninsured) advice via a company that is not a law firm. Matters of which they were aware, over five years ago. Indeed, the Society had the correspondence provided to Grubisa’s lawyers in July 2019 hit its desk well over four years ago.

On 19 April, we reported that the Assure Lawyers website contained videos promoting the same nonsense asset protection program that Grubisa made through MWC for years. A program based on claims that Justice Jackman found breached the Australian Consumer Law. Grubisa’s senior counsel conceded in the hearing of the ACCC case that the claims made on behalf of MWC regarding the asset protection product were false.

Within a day or so of the publication of our article, the pages that contained the videos were removed from the Assure Lawyers website. The videos themselves were set to private.

It is a well-trodden path for Grubisa to take down material covered by the press. In December 2020, she took down a video from YouTube just prior to an article by journalist Richard Baker about her asset protection claims. Richard discussed his yarn with 4BC presenter Kevin Turner a week later. She locked down the video of the product that she rebranded as “Asset Armour” sometime after our article of 1 July 2022. Here’s the page before our article and here’s the page afterwards.

Dominique Grubisa continues her brazen plagiarism spree

Dominique Grubisa continues to brazenly steal the work of others. What will stop this shameless woman?

Nothing has stopped Grubisa. On 4 May, Grubisa was back telling her students that “there's a certain way to ensure that you're able to insure, um, against the sort of happenings that you can't by your standard insurance for”.

In the hearing of the ACCC case, Justice Jackman and Grubisa’s senior counsel had the following exchange:

Justice Jackman: So, what do you say Ms Grubisa’s understanding of the structure was?

Mr Sirtes: The one that she wrongly portrayed, which is, as soon as one signs the — as one signs up on these documents, you obtain a level of protection that the documents, when read together, did not provide.

In her recent presentation, Grubisa said [IA emphasis]:

“So, a lot more can go wrong when you're actively in the property business. Um, but you can protect against that. And I know many of you have this all set up.”

Those who have, have set up a structure that does not provide the level of protection that Grubisa claims. Yet here we have Grubisa again equating her discredited asset protection product with insurance. You are, she claims, able to insure against the things that might go wrong. Sheer and utter nonsense. Dangerous nonsense.

It was accepted by Grubisa’s counsel in the ACCC case that MWC breached the Australian Consumer Law.

Justice Jackman found that Grubisa was knowingly concerned in the contraventions, that she had actual knowledge of the falsity of the representations and that he drew that inference more confidently in light of the fact that Grubisa did not give evidence.

Delusional Grubisa won’t stop misleading her “students”

Dominique Grubisa is utterly delusional. There are no other words to describe her.

In the recent presentation, Grubisa told her audience that Assure Lawyers would set up the asset protection product for them.

She continued:

“...and I know many of you already have it, which is awesome.”

And this is where Grubisa departs from any sense of reality. It is not “awesome”, because Grubisa’s claims are false.

Claims made in the videos that appeared on the Assure Lawyers website are false. One video contained many slides that had been taken from Grubisa’s own presentations. However, instead of Grubisa’s voice, there was a computerised voiceover. There seems no doubt the script was crafted by Grubisa. The format, the slides and the terminology used are all that of Grubisa.

Telling people that they can focus on opportunities “without the fear of loss” is false. Telling them that the asset protection product protects them against the downside for their lifetime is false. So, too, is telling people they can effectively insure against things for which they can’t buy insurance. All claims made in the videos that until recently appeared on the Assure Lawyers website. Grubisa is utterly shameless.

In the hearing of the ACCC case, Justice Jackman alluded to a sinister possibility linked to the “ongoing service” provided regarding the asset protection product. His Honour suggested the possibility of certification of a debt of a high amount when in practice, such debt didn’t exist. He also suggested the certification of the debt might be sufficient to deter someone other than a “particularly energetic third-party creditor”.

Mr Sirtes responded that this was an intention that should not be imputed on his client. If only there had been evidence that this is what had been happening in practice. Oh, yeah — there was! In this segment from A Current Affair in 2021, where two former clients of Grubisa’s business alleged that without their knowledge or consent, her business created the appearance of debts that did not exist. A matter we also covered in our article in November 2022.

Since Justice Jackman handed down his decision on 9 April, Grubisa and MWC have made numerous applications to the Federal Court. The first to stay the relief/penalty stage of the proceedings set down for hearing on 4 July. The second seeking leave to appeal the liability decision. The third, to seek to set aside notices to produce documents that were filed by the ACCC after the liability decision.

On 13 May, Justice John Halley heard the application to stay the liability hearing set down for 4 July. His Honour dismissed the application with costs awarded against Grubisa and her company. The affidavits filed in the application in support of Grubisa and MWC came from none other than James Lyons, preferring Grubisa’s position to the other clients of Assure Lawyers. Grubisa was represented in the hearing of the application to stay the hearing on 4 July by Shane Prince SC.