The County Court of Victoria has convicted former financial adviser Ahmed Saad of one count of obtaining financial advantage by deception and one count of attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception.
Mr Saad is now due to serve two concurrent sentences totalling 10 months for facilitating unlawful early access to superannuation.
He was also sentenced to an 18-month community correction order, including 100 hours of unpaid community work.
As the sole director of Saad Wealth Management, Mr Saad was found to have operated a scheme under which he obtained $1,531,925 on behalf of 168 clients between 11 November 2016 and 13 October 2017.
Mr Saad would access the funds by submitting applications for one-off advice fees to NULIS, as trustee for the MLC Super Fund, in which he represented he had provided financial services to his clients when he had not. He would then pay these funds back to clients, facilitating unlawful early release of superannuation.
Between 11 August 2017 and 11 October 2017, Mr Saad attempted to obtain a further $92,400 on behalf of 10 clients.
“Facilitating the unlawful early release of superannuation can lead to the erosion of people’s super balances, which has the potential to lead to long-term hardship,” said ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court.
“ASIC will continue to take action to protect the superannuation assets of consumers.”
According to the corporate regulator, Mr Saad indirectly benefited from the scheme by growing his client base.
Wonder if this guy passed the FASEA exam? How is the regulations going ASIC. Oh yes first to create a problem last to learn of a problem and do very little tabout it….
I bet he passed the Fasea exam though.
Sarah Court’s comments about the erosion of clients’ retirement savings should cause her to pause and think.
Perhaps the outlandish fees ASIC impose on advisors and financial advice have a similar impact.
However I assume she and ASIC have no understanding of the fact costs are passed in prices that clients have to fund. No public servant or politician understands this fact.
Neither me or any of my colleagues have had to increase our ongoing fees above the rate of CPI – the ASIC levy increases are frustrating but are a cost of doing business and not the fault of my clients therefore I am not gouging them. Perhaps you need some advice for your business cashflow if you feel the need to pass on every cost to your clients?
Advisers are joining small licensees so they don”t have to put up with compliance oversight or getting their own AFSL where the compliance manager is the adviser and the RM. Less licensees , more oversight is necessary
I am not sure I agree that advisers are joining smaller licensees or getting their own so they don’t have to put up with compliance oversight.
Suggest it is more about they don’t want to be aligned with larger licensees that really just want them to be sales people to get more people into their in-house products. That and the fact that most of the issues that come out (like this one here, or the fee for no service, or the junk insurance, ……), seem to happen on the watch of the larger AFSLs.
Bingo! Every AFSL holder I know of is doing more compliance checks and file audits than the big licenses – not less.
Not withstanding there was the Covid early release last year, what this adviser did was illegal and I am ok with the punishment. If he is doing this, he is clearly open to other fraudulent behaviour that we don’t need in the industry.
However, he didn’t do it once or twice. He did it 168 times over a period of 11 months. If it took his licensee (NAB/MLC) a year to figure this out, how the hell does ASIC think it is still ok for them to be fit to be an AFSL.
I am an adviser that works for a small, self-licensed firm. Can ASIC honestly say that if one of us did the same thing, we would not only have been banned, but the business we work for would have been closed down? Of course the answer is no, which just goes to the heart of the hypocrisy in the way ASIC treat advisers and the large licensees.
Interestingly the clients are probably happy. Are any of them going to jail as well? It does sound very similar to something happened in 2021.
Similar to what happened in 2020/21 except for the fact when he did it, it was clearly illegal. Legislation can be a funny thing, but the timing is pretty crucial here.
Hmmm sounds very much like something that happened during covid, how many ASIC execs are facing jail time?
That was allowable via legislation – early release schemes are not. But you knew that already.
So if he offered QANTAS points it would have been OK?
So no remediation to be paid for by the shareholders? It’s off to jail for the small fish and back to business for the big players.
What’s more, the advice industry is now footing the ASIC levy for costs associated with the big players who have left the industry.
Looks like he was done for arranging approx $10k per client…
If only he knew ASIC would allow those people to access up to $20k during Covid…!
You mean ASIC would allow unlicensed mortgage brokers/accountants/car sales men to give superannuation advice to withdraw super funds to get bigger loans. Disgraceful double standards by ASIC/the courts. Why would anyone want to be a financial adviser when everyone else can go ahead.
I wonder if anyone from the Sterling Group will go to jail for their property invetment scam where investory were actuall left worse off.
Well that’s just saad
Dear oh bloody dear, just the calibre of creature we need to be associated with our once-great industry at this time. At best we can hope these sorts of stories don’t hit the mainstream media . . .