An independent director of embattled financial services provider ClearView Wealth has been cleared of criminal charges in Papua New Guinea.

David Brown was arrested in July last year and charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud by PNG police.

ClearView said the charge was due to a claim by Melanesian Trustee Services that National Superannuation Fund, Mr Brown’s employer, had tried to replace it as the manager of the Pacific Balanced Fund.

The criminal charge laid against Mr Brown was dismissed by a Port Moresby court in January.

It wasn’t the only court of opinion ClearView had to face last year, after the company admitted in September to the banking Royal Commission that it may have broken the law up to 303,000 times.

ClearView’s chief actuary and risk officer Gregory Martin agreed the company had broken the law up to 303,000 times over three years by selling insurance via cold calls.

ClearView ramped up cold-calling for life insurance sales in 2013 after buying a business from BUPA.

They targeted people who could ill-afford life insurance and other products such as funeral insurance, and therefore most were quickly cancelled or lapsed.

Cold calling people to sell financial products is illegal under the anti-hawking provisions of the Corporations Act.

ClearView shares were flat at 90c, not quite at the 52-week nadir of 78.5c.

ClearView shares over the last year.

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