FMA wins seven-year management ban against Peter Huljich over Pushpay insider conduct

The Financial Markets Authority has secured a seven-year management banning order against Peter Karl Christopher Huljich. The High Court at Auckland granted the order after Huljich did not oppose the FMA’s application. The ban runs from his conviction date of 3 November 2023.

Huljich may not act as a director or promoter of a financial markets participant without High Court leave. The same bar covers being directly or indirectly concerned in the management of such an entity, or of a company that has resolved to become one. The order is framed under the Financial Markets Authority Act 2011 definition of financial markets participant.

FMA Head of Enforcement Margot Gatland tied the outcome to market integrity. “Everyone trading in our markets is entitled to do so on the same footing, without others acting while holding information the market doesn’t have,” Gatland said. She added that Huljich had such information and encouraged others to trade when it was not generally available.

Gatland said the ban concludes the FMA’s Pushpay share-sale proceedings. With an enforceable undertaking from Sarah Huljich, “this matter is at an end,” she said.

In parallel, the FMA accepted an enforceable undertaking from Sarah Huljich (née Elder), then Pushpay’s head of investor relations. She admitted she ought to have known the information was material and that she helped facilitate trading while holding it. She paid $50,000 in lieu of a pecuniary penalty. The FMA discontinued civil proceedings against her.

Huljich was convicted on 3 November 2023 of insider conduct under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. A High Court jury in Auckland found him guilty in August 2023 after a four-week trial before Justice Ian Gault. Justice Gault imposed six months’ community detention and a $100,000 fine, taking an 18-month imprisonment starting point.

The Court of Appeal in Huljich v R [2025] NZCA 155 dismissed his conviction appeal on 8 May 2025. It allowed the Crown’s sentence appeal, lifting the fine to $200,000 while leaving community detention intact. The Supreme Court declined leave to appeal in August 2025. Only after appellate rights were exhausted did the FMA seek the ban.

The charge concerned events at dual-listed payments software company Pushpay Holdings in 2018. Co-founder and director Eliot Crowther told Huljich in April 2018 he was considering resigning and selling his stake of about nine per cent. Crowther’s holding of about 24.8 million shares was sold in June 2018 at $4.04 via a fully underwritten bookbuild during a trading halt. The pre-halt last trade was about $4.37. Crowther’s own sale was lawful. He was not a party to the FMA proceedings.

The Crown case was that Huljich, then Pushpay’s New Zealand general manager and an information insider, advised or encouraged a trust and/or its principal beneficiary to sell several million Pushpay shares. The trust sold through Craigs Investment Partners between 15 May and 7 June 2018 at an average $4.21, for a net total of several tens of millions of dollars. Particulars included a 3 May 2018 email from Huljich. The offence is advising or encouraging another to trade quoted products while knowing information is material and not generally available. Maximum individual penalty is five years’ imprisonment and/or a $500,000 fine.

Pushpay was not a subject of the investigation and cooperated with the FMA. The company left the NZX Main Board in May 2023 after a scheme of arrangement with a Sixth Street and BGH Capital-associated bidder. It is no longer a listed issuer.

Huljich has publicly maintained his innocence. After the Court of Appeal decision he named himself ahead of suppression expiry and said he hoped eventually to be cleared. Courts have upheld the jury verdict. The FMA has treated the enforcement arc as closed.

I maintain my innocence and am hopeful that eventually I will be cleared of wrongdoing.

He also described the episode as a cautionary tale of unintended legal consequences. Those statements do not alter the conviction or the banning order.

Huljich is a member of Auckland’s Huljich family and son of Christopher Huljich. He and his father founded Huljich Wealth Management, later sold to Fisher Funds. In December 2011 he was convicted and fined about $112,500 for misleading KiwiSaver investors via investment statements. The company was also fined.

The ban is not a blanket Companies Act disqualification from all directorships. It targets financial markets participants and companies resolved to become such, with High Court leave as a safety valve. On its face the seven-year clock runs to early November 2030 unless varied.

For NZX boards, senior managers and compliance teams, the sequence is a full-spectrum FMCA signal: criminal conviction, appellate fine uplift, name publication, civil resolution of the secondary party, then a multi-year management ban. Gatland’s message remains that tipper-style advising or encouraging while holding material non-public information corrodes investor confidence. Domestic and foreign capital prices fairness on the Main Board. This outcome is intended to keep that price honest.