The NSW District Court on Tuesday handed down a multi-year jail sentence to Ms Scott, after concluding she had perpetrated a $5.9 million fraud and had committed various acts of misconduct between 1989 and 2012.
However, a spokesperson for ASIC has confirmed to ifa that in June 1996 its predecessor, the Australian Securities Commission, “took action to ban Ms Scott from the securities and futures industry for a period of 10 years”.
Since the provision of advice on insurance and superannuation products was not regulated by the Corporations Act at that time, the banning order did not restrain Scott from providing personal advice to consumers, the spokesperson said.
In October 2003 – only months before Ms Scott became an authorised representative of Millenium3 in February 2004, according to ASIC documents – the banning order was “varied” to allow her to “provide advice on insurance and superannuation products only”.
The variation was carried out because the Financial Services Reform changes effectively banned Ms Scott from providing advice on super and insurance, which was not the intention of the “securities and futures industry” banning order and was beyond the regulator’s scope at the time of the original decision, the ASIC spokesperson said.
Ms Scott pleaded guilty to three charges of dishonest conduct and four charges of “making and use of false documents” in December 2013.
Her authorisation from Millenium3 was revoked on 15 May 2012, with parent company ANZ involved in compensating aggrieved former clients.
Well well well Oh Dear ANZ, it’s getting worse and worse each day.
John, the lack of a register has meant consumers dont have access to the facts, banks and their lawyers do doubt have greater resources at their disposal. they either dropped the ball here (unlikely) or knowinglgy employed a crook. maybe they thought someone with an already nefarious rep might be more amenable to the inhouse incentives. or maybe im just a cynic
I think if anything it gives credence to the new ASIC Financial Adviser Register. The fact is, until now it has been difficult to find some of these facts out.
It gives credence to the adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”
Surely ANZ has a duty of care to their clients to carry out due diligence before appointing these sorts of dodgy advisers
You fail to mention Melinda Scott was also authorised with Financial Wisdom prior to the Financial Reform Act in 2004, despite investigations ASIC would not disclose the reasons for the previous banning order, it is an indictment on regulations at that time.