Former financial adviser, John Wertheimer, pleaded guilty last week in the Perth Magistrates Court to one charge of providing a financial service on behalf of a person who carries on a financial services business while unauthorised to do so.
Mr Wertheimer also admitted to one charge of engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to a financial service.
Mr Wertheimer was a financial adviser under his own company, John Wertheimer & Associates, before appointing Picture Wealth Advisory to service a group of clients.
According to ASIC, between 1 May and 21 May 2020, Mr Wertheimer made 48 unauthorised transactions on the Netwealth trading accounts belonging to 36 clients of Picture Wealth without the knowledge or authorisation of either the clients or Picture Wealth.
Moreover, between 29 May and 22 July 2020, Mr Wertheimer lodged five investment instruction documents with Netwealth that purported to relay instructions to deal with financial products on behalf of clients of Picture Wealth.
Those instruction documents contained forged signatures and, according to ASIC, were prepared and lodged without the knowledge or authorisation of four of the clients or Picture Wealth.
At the time of offending, Mr Wertheimer was not authorised by Picture Wealth or any other Australian Financial Services Licensee to provide financial services to clients.
The matter was committed to the District Court of Western Australia for a sentence mention hearing on 11 November 2022.
ASIC noted that Mr Wertheimer faces a combined maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment for the two charges.
And clients complain when providers have stringent processes in place, only to protect them from people like this….
The outcome for him will be far worse that any outcome for any executive at AMP or NAB FP or other dodgy businesses which oversaw hundreds of thousands of clients ripped off billions of dollars through fee for no service scandal. Hardly seems like an equitable system.
Naughty naughty. Glad this behaviour has been called out. Move on old timer, that sort of behaviour won’t be tolerated anymore.
Would not be tolerated full stop unless he had an authority to do the transactions on behalf of those clients.
Authority to transact is chosen at initial application stage by client
Old Timer ????
From the sounds of it he didn’t steal, so why was he acting on this. It looks like he had those clients for a long time previously I hope this isn’t a case of trying to help out and getting burnt.
Does look that way.
Yep that was my thought too- many clients don’t like having to sign and approve day to day investment decisions.
That is what the adviser is paid to do via ongoing trail revenue
He wasn’t an authorised representative for starters.
There’s a bug “but” here – he was unauthorised and some clients were not aware of the transactions. Not sure how that’s helping his clients. Thanks