Shiju Mathews: registration suspended by OMARA on 23 Jan 2024

What the Authority decided

On 23 January 2024, the Office of the Migration Agent Registration Authority (the Authority) suspended the registration of migration agent Mr Shiju Mathews (MARN 0637656) for a period of three (3) years; and until certain conditions are met, following an investigation into two complaints in relation to the Agent’s conduct.

The Authority found that the Agent breached his obligations under clauses 2.9 and 2.9A of the former Code for registered migration agents (“the fomer Code”). The Authority also found that the Agent was not a person of integrity or otherwise a fit and proper person to provide immigration assistance.

The Authority found that the Agent:

• signed employment contracts in support of three employer-sponsored applications when he did not have the authority to do so;
• made false application declarations in multiple employer-sponsored applications by knowingly withholding adverse information;
• attempted to mislead the Authority through his responses to statutory notices by making contradictory and unsupported claims;
• acted recklessly by failing to ensure that four companies for which he was an officeholder, including his own migration agency, met their sponsorship obligations; and
• undermined the integrity of the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) (subclass 482) visa program by disregarding sponsorship obligations; and using his businesses to facilitate migration outcomes for family members of employees.

A copy of the decision with personal information and business names redacted is available below.

The Agent has applied for review of the decision to suspend his registration as a migration agent to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The application for review does not permit the Agent to provide immigration assistance.

On 18 September 2024 the Administrative Appeals Tribunal dismissed the Agent's application for review due to his failure to comply with directions of the Tribunal.

The decision summary above is reproduced from the Authority's published record of this decision, which also carries the decision document itself. Nothing has been added to it.

What a suspension means if this was your agent

The registration is suspended for a set period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance — not to you, not to anyone. Section 280 of the Migration Act makes paid immigration assistance by an unregistered person a criminal offence, and a suspended agent is unregistered for the duration.

This is the outcome that most often catches people mid-matter, because the agent is still there and the suspension has an end date. If your matter can wait, it may be able to wait. If you have a response deadline from the Department inside the suspension period, it cannot.

If this was your agent: the first week

1. Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
2. Check who the Department is writing to. A Form 956 makes an agent the authorised recipient, and correspondence sent to them is taken to have been given to you. A deadline sent to an inbox nobody reads is still a deadline.
3. Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
4. Work out what was paid and what was done. Ask for the itemised invoices and receipts the Code requires. Routes to recover money work better started early.
5. Complain, if there is something to complain about. A published decision does not close your own file. Where to complain, and what OMARA can and cannot do.
6. Only then, find someone else. A new agent needs the file and the dates. The first five steps are what make that first conversation useful instead of exploratory.

What this decision does not mean

It is a decision about one individual on one date. Only a person can be a registered migration agent — a company cannot — so it says nothing about anyone else at the same practice. Decisions of this kind are reviewable, and bars and suspensions expire. The register is where the current position lives.

Decision information sourced from the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. VisaBid is not affiliated with OMARA or the Department of Home Affairs.