In April, ifa reported AMP had deliberately sought to conceal former AMP executive Adam Palmer’s inappropriate advice from Dover after he announced his intention to switch licensees.
AMP asserted Mr Palmer had failed numerous internal audits over multiple years, and it had just commenced action to terminate his employment when he tendered his resignation.
But in an ASIC document seen by ifa, senior ASIC executives were happy with Adam’s work at AMP, and noted that clients were happy with the advice and services provided by Mr Palmer.
While record-keeping compliance failures were present, ASIC said Mr Palmer otherwise:
- identified the client’s needs and objectives, the subject matter of the advice, and the relevant information applicable to the subject matter of the advice;
- provided sound advice, with the products recommended indicating that the clients appear to have been placed into a product that is suited to their needs;
- the expertise and authority to provide the advice;
- took steps that would reasonably be regarded as being in the best interests of the client, given the client’s circumstances;
- there does not appear to be client detriment;
- clients are happy with the advice and services provided by the adviser.
Speaking exclusively to ifa, Dover Financial director Terry McMaster said Mr Palmer “did it by the ASIC book”, including full disclosure in his AMP Financial Services Guide and full disclosure in his AMP statements of advice.
Further, he called Mr Palmer “an excellent financial planner”, and that he’s not alone in his assessment of his record at AMP.
“Senior executives, such as John Weaver, Christopher Newby, Lisa Saunders, Vaughn Claxton and Andrew Davison, agree with me. These guys were happy with Adam’s work at AMP,” Mr McMaster said.
“His AMP clients agree with me. None complained about his advice and, when interrogated by ASIC, his AMP clients stood firmly by him. In fact they were full of praise and thanks.”
More to come.
ASIC shut Dover down because their Client Protection Policy is not effective in the event that one of their Advisers does the wrong thing whereas they let the Banks and AMP actually breach the Law and let them off with a small donation to a charity and allow them to draft the Media Release to boot!
Well said!
IFA are getting all the scoops here…. How much longer before the mainstream media pick this up?
Our whole profession’s regulation for an individual planner is predicated on “guilty” unless unequivocally proven innocent, but even then, still guilty if ASIC so wish. Meanwhile institutions, both banking and ISA, and their CEO’s, trustees & managers, can get away with almost anything.
This has to change. Planners need to be under the same proof system or regime as civil or criminal courts; a charge brought to bear and the onus of proof has to be equally on proving guilt as defending it.
ASIC should not be prosecutor, jury and judge. This case and the misfeasance shown with negotiating with larger institutions shows that ‘corruption’ is possible at all levels.
As ASIC are no longer in the public service, and therefore not government agency as such, surely they now need to present their cases for action/banning to an impartial third party government power to assess and judge on facts presented?
this is why it is so important for us to wrestle our profession away from these lousy big institutions, dealer groups, asic, the fpa, and afa, and become self regulated. happy to be regulated, supervised whatever , i have no issues as neither do the clear majority of advisers who always put the best interest of the client before our own
but the profession has to be regulated like others such as medicine and the law, with due process, with the presumption of innocence, privately and in a dignified manner.
i’m not a fucking animal, i am a highly educated, tax paying citizen, i’m entitled to ask for that much.
best,
High Quals FP
This is dishonest conduct by all involved…. if it can happen to Adam Palmer, it could happen to you. Scary….
You can read ASICs official memo here:
https://www.dover.com.au/files/uploads/2018/10/ASIC.0016.0001.1024.pdf
“No further action required”. If I hadn’t read it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it….
Can the mainstream media please pick this up?
so this guy gets destroyed for nothing. i think mr palmer should get a bunch of lawyers
This is all just smoke and mirror again. Dover was invited to go back to give evidence at the RC but didnt take up the invitation. Why is the url not directly linked to the RC official website?
Breaking News (unless the penny hasn’t dropped yet), Hayne RC looks to have colluded with ASIC and the banks to create the sideshow now known as the closure of Dover…Costello must feel like a real tough guy too considering he sat on the bench waiting to be tagged in at the last minute while Hayne let him perform contrary to the Rubric…pathetic.
It would be nice to see reports from ASIC more regularly and feedback on surveys, investigations, etc – given directly to the Adviser in question/under investigation and their Dealer Group. Often you hear nothing back at all unless it’s a request for further information, or something negative. If you’ve done right by the clients and advice standards (even though we need to essentially guess what ASIC want in a SoA these days and hope for the best) and these files are reviewed by ASIC, often even requesting feedback results in silence. Not that I’m saying they seem to view themselves as being above the law of course….
Amazing. Sarah Britt rocks up to the RC and absolutely bags her own Adviser. Even says Palmer is dishonest… yet she, Mr Hayne, Ms Orr and ASIC must all have known ASIC found Palmer’s work at the AMP to be good.
And they found Palmer’s work at Dover to be good too…
Sounds like Palmer and Dover were set up.
Who by? Well, it has to be the AMP, Mr Hayne, Ms Orr and ASIC, doesn’t it? If it is not, how did this happen?
Forgive me, but who would take the AMP’s word for anything anyway? The RC had already found it lied to ASIC and had engaged in criminal conduct. So why was the RC listening to the AMP?
Why didn’t ASIC speak and say “no, the AMP is lying. We found Palmer did good work when he was at the AMP and we cannot work it why the RC allowed the AMP to lie to it”.
In case you’re having trouble believing any of this, check for yourself.
Link to official ASIC memo re Adam Palmer, NFA (No further action) required:
[url=http://https://www.dover.com.au/files/uploads/2018/10/ASIC.0016.0001.1024.pdf][/url]
What a great read…
And yet Adam Palmer had his reputation destroyed at the Royal Commission. Why? Adam needs to find himself a good defamation lawyer.
The mainstream media should be all over this. Four Corners anyone?
this is hardly a surprise. the adviser is just the scapegoat they have no defense. they get thrown under the bus as often as required with no recourse
what are you going to do, suck it up, life ain’t fair
shhhhh, quiet, be invisible except to your clients
best,
high quals fp
Remembering the insane level of adviser poaching and bribing ( with the mutual fund policy holder’s money) that went on between AMP and National Mutual back in the wild old 80’s nothing would surprise me. The sales management right to the top is incentivised on share of the front line adviser’s commission. They must hate with a passion any adviser who manages to leave and take the clients with him…such as moving to Dover. Sometimes the truth is hiding under a rock.
I think Terry had a cunning plan. he was going to get to about 800 to 1,000 advisers take all of the fum from the instos, then do a trade sale back to one of the big instos.
he would have made a killing. problem i saw was he spoke too loudly and too often (even though he was mostly correct) espousing his own virtues, had he not done that, he would have gotten there pretty quick
should have taken a leaf from aussie john symonds, made a motza, sold all shares to CBA before the bubble blows, and is in languishing perilously in monaco spending $10m on his birthday party
now that’s class and style, rob the robbers
Hmmm….the plot thickens!
This will be interesting – the real issues at last.
Is it standard practice at AMP to attack their own adviser force and lie to ASIC?
Not just at AMP..
It seems you need your head read to want to advise under AMPs auspices. Unless of course the Golden Handcuffs are still attached, despite the ever changing rules
Or the Volume bonus aka marketing allowance !!!!!!
Sort of shows bias and unethical comments by ASIC, doesn’t it? Looking for scapegoats rather than telling the full story to the RC. Wouldn’t that be an offence? Concealing evidence? Oh dear. This gets worse by the day. Just what was the RC meant to find and what was the real un-published agenda? Same question of those who gave evidence….if it was a means to justify certain desired outcomes ie create perception of a problem to allow the solution (that would otherwise be unacceptable) to be accepted. I hope that is not the case – I hope that people in high places can be sufficiently objective and pure in their intent and actions.
Yes just like how LIF was objective and pure in it’s intent……..