Three Youpla directors disqualified and fined over collapsed funeral fund targeting Aboriginal families

On Wednesday, Federal Court justice Geoffrey Kennett handed down penalties to three former directors of the collapsed funeral fund Youpla Group, formerly the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund (ACBF). Together they were fined $90,000 and banned from managing corporations for between five and 10 years, after being found to have breached their duties to the people the fund served.

Jonathan Law, a former director of the insurance company, was ordered to pay the commonwealth $50,000 and was disqualified for six years. Michael Wilson was ordered to pay $20,000 and disqualified for 10 years. Geoffrey Clayton was also ordered to pay $20,000 and disqualified for five years. The three must also pay a combined $17,000 toward the plaintiff's costs.

Kennett found that the trio had not performed their duties with the degree of care and diligence expected of them, had failed to manage conflicts of interest, and had caused detriment to ACBF members. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) brought the case in August 2023 against five former directors and officers, alleging governance failures and misconduct affecting First Nations members of the funds. It alleged that the directors and officers kept in place insurance arrangements with Crown Insurance, a Vanuatu-based company owned and controlled by Law and by the founder, Ron Pattenden, and did not act in the best interests of the ACBF entities and their members. For breaches occurring between 2017 and March 2019, the maximum penalty is $200,000 per breach.

Wednesday's ruling followed a judgment late last month in which Pattenden was ordered to pay a quarter of a million dollars and was barred from managing corporations for 15 years. He had acknowledged breaching directors' duties in a settlement of the claim with ASIC. In that same judgment, Kennett found that the former Youpla Group chief, Bryn Jones, had breached his duties after a contested liability hearing in February. Jones denied knowing about increases in the fund's insurance premiums. His penalty will be decided at a later hearing.

Youpla sold junk funeral policies to Indigenous people across Australia for decades. It targeted communities where English was not the first language and where literacy levels were low. Its marketing used the red, black and yellow of the Aboriginal flag, along with stuffed toys and colouring books for children, and its staff turned up at community events and went door to door.

Regulators investigated the company over the years, but it was not until 2018, when its conduct was exposed at the banking royal commission, that its licence to sell new products was withdrawn. In 2021 ASIC questioned its solvency, and the directors finally pulled the plug. The company collapsed in March 2022, leaving more than 13,000 Aboriginal people, some of them elderly or in palliative care, without the means to pay for funerals. Families turned to crowdfunding, and some had to leave their loved ones' bodies in the morgue while they raised the money.

The company itself has already faced penalties. In September 2023 the Federal Court fined Youpla $1.2m for misrepresenting its policies: plan holders were told they would receive a lump sum, when they would only be reimbursed for expenses they could prove had been incurred. Millions more in fines handed down in July 2025 went unpaid because the company was in liquidation.

In February 2024 the federal government announced a $97m support package to help thousands of mostly low-income Aboriginal families recover from their losses. Payments to remaining victims will continue to be processed until 1 December this year, and eligible recipients can choose either a funeral bond or a cash payment worth 60% of the value of their policy. Still ahead is the hearing that will set Bryn Jones's penalty.