The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has announced that it has banned Melbourne-based financial adviser Wade Lance Spooner for eight years.
Spooner, who had been authorised by MWL since May 2021, is now restrained from providing financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business or performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business.
“ASIC found that Mr Spooner gave inappropriate advice to certain clients which was not in their best interests, as he recommended clients invest most of their superannuation into the High Growth class and the Growth class of the Shield Master Fund (Shield) which were high-risk investments. Shield also had a limited trading history,” the regulator said in a statement.
Spooner, who was also a member of MWL’s investment committee, provided statements of advice to clients that ASIC said contained false and misleading statements that implied they would enjoy better returns by investing their superannuation into Shield.
This included “representations that Shield had a higher performing track record against other super funds when Shield had only been in existence for a short period”.
“ASIC has reason to believe that Mr Spooner is not a fit and proper person and is likely to contravene a financial services law,” it said.
On the day the banning order took effect on 25 July 2025, Spooner lodged an application with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) seeking a review of ASIC’s decision, as well as an application for a stay and confidentiality orders pending the outcome of the ART review.
The ART heard Spooner’s application for a stay and confidentiality orders, however refused the request on 20 October.
Spooner’s review application of ASIC’s decision remains ongoing with the ART.
The announcement follows ASIC cancelling the Australian Financial Services licence of MWL Financial Services and banning director Nicholas Maikousis for 10 years over conduct in relation to the Shield Master Fund.
ASIC found MWL operated what it called a “low-cost advice project” from 2021 to receive referrals from telemarketers/lead generators and to recommend clients invest their superannuation in Shield. Between September 2021 and February 2024, MWL recommended Shield to more than 750 clients who collectively invested $155 million.
“Clients who seek advice from financial advisers should be able to trust that the advice they receive will be in their best interest. Failing to manage conflicts has the potential to cause consumers to be given financial product advice that may not suit their needs,” said ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court in August.
ASIC also banned the firm’s responsible manager and compliance manager, Robert John Tohill, from providing any financial services for five years.
“Mr Tohill commenced as compliance manager at MWL in December 2016 and was appointed as one of MWL’s responsible managers in December 2021,” ASIC said in a statement.
“Whilst at MWL, certain financial advisers provided personal financial product advice to consumers who invested in the Shield Master Fund.”
In cancelling MWL’s licence, ASIC required MWL to remain a member of AFCA until 25 August 2026.
MWL, Maikousis and Tohill have the right to apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decisions.
The action follows ASIC banning four MWL Financial Services advisers in July, beginning with Isaac Jacob McQueen and Matthew Simon Bradley for a period of four and eight years, respectively.
Later that month, ASIC announced it had banned MWL advisers Rocco D’Amelio and Robert Crossing from providing financial services for a period of seven and six years, respectively.
At the start of July, ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court had signalled bans were on the horizon, warning consumers to be on “red alert” over the kind of high-pressure sales tactics that urge super switching, which has been a key feature of its investigations into both Shield and the First Guardian Master Fund.
Where are the bannings for the platforms employees that approved it on their platforms? And by the way don’t wish this on anybody. The whole ‘saga’ is lets make up the narrative as we go and in turn damage advisers reputations that were the last link in the chain that from an ethics position were passionate and believed in the investment not just on performance but diversification. Is this ethics…Belief and passion? Name one institution or financial practise that does not have preferred investment options? If they didn’t good luck to monitoring the investments!! The case now is it got approved by big platforms, where are the bannings here? It’s a pity advisers being ignored when they stated the facts but doesn’t appear in the media or the bannings, just the narrative being written to how they want to direct it. This does not excuse the fund misapproation of funds fraud, everybody has been let down. This is the real case people.
If ASIC only issued interim stop orders on four product disclosure statements (PDSs) for classes of units of the Shield Master Fund on the 7th of February how was any financial adviser supposed to know this before ASIC took action?? https://www.asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2024-releases/24-018mr-asic-halts-offers-of-shield-master-fund/
Plenty of misleading statements.
With information that now available publicly we now know First Guardian was on another level of deception. Their performance figures compared to the benchmark would look impressive to anyone; this is fraud at the fund manager level not deception by the adviser.
It would be interesting to know if Macquarie and other platforms that approved it on their platform, too back tested the data beyond its inception date to see the performance and volatility to then have it approved. Afterall it did ultimately get approved on these platforms. An adviser relies on information and approval from these platforms and an advisers understanding would be analysts that have a lot more understanding and intelligence of investment structures. I’m sure that for any adviser in the industry that having it on a platform holds a tremendous amount of weight in their product selection and assurance. It strongly appears the case that the platform and then too the adviser saw the merits in the Shield investment. We hear the term ‘limited trading history’ being thrown around. What does this mean? You can’t invest in it even though the composition goes back a lot longer than the inception date…. Interested to see if there have been other instances where large fund flow has gone into other new investments with a limited track record. Looks like the advisers, platforms have been blind sided. No real news yet if the Shield fund managers have acted fraudulently or not in the best interest of the investors. Any adviser would expect that a fund would act in the best interests to to investors prior to their own interests and invest as per their product description. Advisers are not gatekeepers to find fraud or any wrong doing. Any of this stuff mentioned you can’t learn it is a fund that did not say what it was going to do.
Just check the Statement of Agreed Facts between ASIC and Macquarie. It says they did consider the past performance of the 2 underlying funds when approving Shield.
If the advice practice owners were receiving significant commercial benefits from the fund manager then instructing their advisers to recommend that fund manager’s product, that is where the ultimate blame lies.
All the other stuff about trustees and platforms and research houses and junior advisers within the practice, are second order issues. But unfortunately our regulatory system is incapable of stopping or punishing obvious offenders, so they go after easier targets.
That would make sense if there were any payments or kickbacks — but there weren’t. ASIC has never alleged that MWL or its advisers received any payments from the fund manager.
Meanwhile, Macquarie Super, the APRA-regulated trustee, approved and listed the fund while collecting ongoing administration fees, and SQM Research were paid to rate it “Favourable.” Those are the parties that carried the legal obligations for product governance and diversification oversight.
The fund ultimately failed because of corporate governance failures and fraud — issues Macquarie should have been actively monitoring as trustee.
Advisers relied on a product that was rated, approved, and signed off through the proper channels. If that framework failed, accountability lies with those who built and profited from it — not those who operated within it.
Maybe not direct payments, but commercial benefits through funding a large marketing campaign.
If you run an advice firm and spend $100K a year on marketing, that’s $100K less profit you have. If a dodgy fund manager provides you with $100K worth of marketing services, that $100K saving gets pocketed as profit. Same net result as a kickback, just structured more opaquely.
Are you talking about industry super?
Yes advisers are gatekeepers,
They were invested in one fund, maybe 2.
So no diversification at all
They had all client’s as high growth to justify putting them into these funds
I cant see why people are defending the advisers here.
Have you seen any of the advice that was given? Spoken to any effected client’s?
If you did and saw the fees they were charged and how the advice was presented, any self respecting adviser would report it straight away.
Yes there were others in the loop, but the advisers pulled the trigger, and made good money out of it.
Report it to who?
ASIC who would ignore them?
Their employer who would sack them?
Their licensee who would launch weaponised compliance against them and withhold references?
That’s a pretty surface-level take. A single investment option can still be diversified — especially within a managed fund structure. Macquarie, as the APRA-regulated trustee, has an obligation to ensure all super options are diversified in line with its own prudential limits. That’s exactly why Macquarie imposes strict diversification caps on each investment option.
In fact, Macquarie themselves confirmed the Shield strategy met those diversification standards. So if you’re saying “no diversification,” you’re actually arguing Macquarie breached its own governance rules — not the advisers.
And no, you clearly haven’t seen the actual advice or spoken with affected clients. The so-called “high fees” line doesn’t stack up either — ASIC literally described this as part of its low-cost advice project. The advice fees were well below industry averages.
It’s fine to criticise, but it helps to base it on facts — not assumptions.
Yes I have seen files, ive met with clients, thee are facts, so where are you getting your info from? From Asic press releases?
Not real life
In real life you don’t change clients risk profiles to suit you
In real life you don’t invest into one fund with no history
In real life you don’t charge clients 5500 for a simple rollover
Why are you defending this?
Maybe after you see todays article you may change your tune.
But I doubt it as I think you have skin in this game.
In reality, having clients invested in a single diversified Growth or High Growth fund is completely standard — that’s how most super funds operate. For example, Hostplus Balanced is around 90% growth assets, and that’s still considered an appropriate default option under APRA guidelines.
If you look at the Agreed Facts between ASIC and Macquarie, it clearly sets out what the underlying funds of the Shield Master Fund were — and those were existing strategies with performance histories going back to 2016. So it wasn’t some untested product.
And on fees — even ASIC called this the “low-cost advice project.” That means the typical industry fee level of $5,500 for a rollover simply wasn’t being charged.
It’s fine to debate the structure, but let’s stick to what’s actually in the documents — not the rumours.
Funny how ASIC keeps painting this like some grand deception, yet conveniently leaves out that the Shield Master Fund carried a “Favourable” rating with no governance concerns from SQM Research and sat on the Macquarie Super menu — an APRA-regulated platform that’s since admitted breaching the Corporations Act.
The so-called “false and misleading statements” were literally explaining what was in the SQM report: that the Shield funds were new but made up of two existing investment strategies with performance history back to 2016. Advisers were doing what any reasonable planner would — showing clients how the underlying investments had performed, not fabricating a history.
Meanwhile, the fund later collapsed due to governance failures on the trustee and platform side, not the advisers who trusted those institutional safeguards. ASIC’s story ignores the bigger picture: this was a product failure, not an advice scandal.
Are you one of the advisers involved or work for them?
I know many planners and none would even remotely agree with these comments that are all the same, deflecting off the advisers involved
You can say what you want but afca will have the last say no matter what spin you are trying to put on it
This was an advice scandal!
No, I’m not one of the advisers — just someone who’s actually looked at the evidence rather than the headlines.
Calling it an “advice scandal” is lazy. The Shield option was independently rated and approved by SQM Research, one of the most widely used research houses in the country, and then listed by Macquarie Super — an APRA-regulated trustee that is legally required to ensure every option on its platform meets diversification and liquidity tests.
If you’ve read the ASIC–Macquarie agreed facts, you’d know Macquarie signed off on the structure and SQM’s reports clearly outlined how it was diversified across multiple strategies and underlying property assets. That’s why it was approved and monitored for years.
AFCA’s focus now is on Macquarie’s oversight, not advisers recommending an option from an approved list. ASIC itself described this as a low-cost advice project, with fees well below industry averages.
So no, this isn’t “spin” — it’s just the part of the story that doesn’t fit the headline.
Shouldn’t the token ASIC Ethics course have solved this problem?
If you are still complaining about the ethics course why are you still here?
Maybe you should do something that dosen’t involve ethics like be a pollie.
Not complaining at all. Just highlighting that it was a pure money grab. Ethics isnt something u learn.
That’s just an easy line to throw around, but it doesn’t hold up.
If it was a “pure money grab,” explain why ASIC themselves called it the low-cost advice project — their words, not mine. The fees were well below industry averages, and most clients paid less than what they would have with a typical super fund adviser.
And yes, ethics is something that can be learned and reinforced — that’s the whole point of ongoing education, CPD, and the FASEA Code. It’s also something that should apply across the entire chain — including research houses like SQM Research and trustees like Macquarie who approved and listed the product.
It’s easy to moralise after the fact, but let’s at least keep the discussion grounded in the facts.
If only ethics training could undo structural governance failures. Advisers aren’t the ones rating funds “Favourable” or adding them to APRA-regulated super menus — that’s on the institutions. The issue here isn’t a lack of ethics, it’s a system that green-lights products, fails to monitor them, then scapegoats advisers once it all unravels.
that is rubbish. I see it is now reported that asic allege merhi received inflated loans from first guardian to purchase businesses. And that he owned multiple “honeypot”websites. Not to mention known conflicted payments made to related entities of $19m dollars. Would you want a client to have got advice from one of these entities if you knew this?
That’s just not accurate. Ferras Merhi’s actions are Ferras Merhi’s actions alone — he owned and operated an entirely separate business and there was no connection, contact, or crossover between his operations and advisers at MWL.
If you actually read the article you’re referencing, ASIC hasn’t even alleged what you’re claiming. None of those “honeypot websites” or “inflated loans” are mentioned in the ASIC findings or banning orders. You’re mixing in rumours and unrelated entities.
The irony here is that SQM Research, one of Australia’s most established research houses, rated the Shield Master Fund as “Favourable.” They analysed the same information that advisers relied on — information approved and listed by Macquarie Super, an APRA-regulated trustee.
So why is it that research houses can rate and promote a product, the platform can list it, and somehow it’s the adviser’s fault for reading the research and following the approved process?
Let’s stick to facts, not gossip.
Facts? The real irony here as that MWL were not even subscribers to SQM Research. And please tell us more about the link between Louie Kortesis (Director of MWL) and Keystone, for which he was also a Director??
Ah I see, you’re from SQM. Was Macquarie a subscriber to SQM Research? I know Netwealth was but have turned their back away from their negligent reporting.
Facts are that SQM Research rated another fund First Guardian “Favourable” “no corporate governance concerns” for years and years and that fund has also collapsed because of corporate governance concerns.
Not only 1 fund. But 2 funds that have gone on to fail. In reality, SQM Research should be aware of this very question and not have to ask a comments section.