iscover Director jailed for obtaining $2.48m from false invoices
BusinessA director who obtained nearly $2.5 million through false invoices has been banned by ASIC for five years and sentenced to over a year of imprisonment and 300 hours of community service.
On 30 April 2026, a former NSW director was sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales and faces one year of home detention and 300 hours of community service work under an intensive correction order (ICO) after being sentenced on 1 April 2026.
Mark Barnes, the former director of Barnes Marketing Services in NSW, fraudulently obtained $2,478,624 by selling false invoices, ASIC outlined in a statement. Barnes Marketing Services was a sales and marketing business for organisations in the Australian arts industry. On 25 May 2021, Hall Chadwick was appointed to liquidate the company.
In its investigation, ASIC found that Barnes had rendered false invoices to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, dishonestly obtaining $1,318,979 and $1,159,645, respectively. Despite the invoices, ASIC found that Barnes had not rendered any services to the orchestra.
Between 28 May 2018 and about 20 December 2019, Barnes sold these false invoices to Handley Advisory Partners Pty Ltd, trading as FIFO Capital Metro NSW (FIFO), a cash flow solutions provider.
Despite repaying the amount advanced and obtained from FIFO, Barnes continued to submit false invoices on a rolling basis to maintain the availability of funds, ASIC said. The investigation found that Barnes’s dishonest conduct led him to owe FIFO $270,412.
In addition, on or about 13 January 2020, Barnes attempted to obtain $118,206 from Opera Australia by issuing another false invoice to FIFO, which inflated the amounts purportedly invoiced for services provided to the national opera body.
ASIC funded a report on liquidator Hall Chadwick, created by Steven Gladman of the Assetless Administration Fund, to commence its investigations. Barnes was subsequently charged with “obtaining a financial advantage by deception” in December 2024.
Deputy chief judge Christopher O’Brien found that there was a “degree of sophistication” in Barnes’ offending as they included the production of “falsified invoices, emails and bank statements”, finding that imprisonment was an appropriate penalty for his offending.
Barnes was charged at the Downing Centre Local Court on 4 February 2025, with “two offences of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception and one offence of attempting to dishonestly obtain a financial advantage by deception”, ASIC said. He pleaded guilty to one count of “dishonesty, obtaining a financial advantage by deception” on 11 November 2025.
He has since been disqualified from managing companies for five years until 1 April 2031. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) was the prosecutor for this matter.
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Carlos Tse
Carlos Tse is a graduate journalist writing for Accountants Daily, HR Leader, Lawyers Weekly.