James Yap: registration cancelled by OMARA on 8 Mar 2022
Registration removed. The agent may not give immigration assistance, usually with a period before they may re-apply.
Reported from the OMARA disciplinary decisions register, read on 11 Sep 2026. The register is the authoritative source and it changes: decisions are reviewable, and suspensions and bars expire. Check it before you act on anything here.
What the Authority decided
On 8 March 2022 the Authority decided to cancel the registration of migration agent James Lip Funn YAP (MARN: 0701633) as a result of two complaints. The Authority was satisfied that he breached clauses 2.1, 2.1A 2.1B, 2.2, 2,4, 5.2, 5.5, 7.2 and 8.3 of the former Code of Conduct for Registered Migration Agents (the former Code). The Agent was found to have failed to act in the interests of his clients. He had actual conflicts of interests which he did not declare to his clients and put his own interests before those of his clients. The Agent failed to declare commissions he would receive from his business partners when his migration clients invested with the Agent’s business partners. On the Agent’s advice the clients invested significant funds to securing business visas and permanent residency in Australia in the Business Innovation and Investment Program. The Agent’s clients lost very significant amounts of money. The Agent was found to have breached the former Code and was also found not to be a person of integrity and not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance.
An anonymised version of the decision (to protect the privacy of third parties) is available by following the link below:
On 4 April 2022 the agent lodged an application for review of the cancellation decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. On 18 August 2020 the Agent withdrew his appeal.
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 cancellation means if this was your agent
The registration is removed. The agent's name comes off the Register of Migration Agents and they may not give immigration assistance. A cancellation is usually accompanied by a period during which the person may not be registered again.
Nobody is acting on your matter right now. Treat this as urgent, and start with who the Department is writing to.
If this was your agent: the first week
- Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
- 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.
- Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
If you are named here and something does not match the published decision — including where a decision has since been set aside, varied, or has expired — tell us and we will correct or remove it. We report what the register says; when the register changes, this should change with it.
This page reports a regulator's decision and explains in general terms what that kind of decision means. It is not immigration assistance and not legal advice, and it cannot take your circumstances into account. Only a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner may advise you on your own application.
Finding someone else
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