ifa reported in August 2015 that Graeme Cowper had brought a defamation case against Fairfax Media and the ABC for linking him to forgery and other misconduct.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mr Cowper backed out of the case on Monday, agreeing that judgement should be entered in Fairfax and the ABC’s favour as well as agreeing to pay $200,000 in legal costs to the media companies.
According to court documents last year, Mr Cowper claimed an ABC TV report named him as one of “at least some financial planners identified in the leaked NAB report” who were involved in misconduct and are still giving advice.
Mr Cowper, however, was the only person named in the broadcast, the court documents say, and by naming him at the end of the news piece, it may have acted “like a lightning rod” for all the suspicion conveyed by the broadcast.
Mr Cowper also claimed there were implications that he was engaged in forgery in an article dealing with generic allegations of forgery and other misconduct against a number of former NAB advisers.
He further alleged that Fairfax journalist Adele Ferguson had summarised certain information in an email to Julia Quinn, director of media and community relations at AMP, where Mr Cowper worked at the time.
Mr Cowper had sought to include within the scope of damages any re-publication of the email by Ms Quinn, for which the defendants would have been liable.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the media outlets had pleaded a number of defences, such as truth and qualified privilege.
Adele Ferguson should be worried about the hundreds of thousands of people she may have discouraged from getting financial advice that would significantly improve their lives. Years from now they will be asking why they are so much worse off than their friends who did get professional advice.
If you want to really test the Insto’s “Best Interest Duty” compliance culture then all you need to do is have a bank planner sell/recommend products that are NOT on the banks APL such as Industry super funds, other company insurance products and the like and you will see that planner last 30 days or less then get sacked! I worked at a Big 4 Bank as a planner and I had sales targets and those targets had to be met by selling the bank-aligned APL products, if I didn’t meet those targets then I would be “under the gun” as the branch manager once put it!
Interesting… because I work for a big 4 bank, and I almost never use their insurance product and frequently recommend the retention of super funds other than theirs too. I’ve never been threatened, never been made to feel I wasn’t toeing some corporate line, my compliance reviews confirm I advise in accordance with BID, and my performance reviews tell me how valued I am. I felt more compelled to use a white labelled product owned by the dealer group I was part of, when it was far less obvious to the client that was what they were getting, and that dealer group was ‘independent’.
So he’s been named and shamed, has had to pay defamation costs but nothing is noted about whether or not he’s been banned, not to mention whether or not he’s been found guilty of the alleged misconduct….
Absolutely agree with Paul’s comments. Whenever an insto has a full or part ownership of a financial planning business there is always a conflict of interest that most often will tilt best interest duty in the intso’s favour because as Paul said the instos have seen financial planning as a distribution channel not an advice channel. On top of biases against the client there are the biases against the planning firm. Where the insto holds a partial ownership ( strategic investment they often call it ) and has a position on the planning firm’s board there is far too much influence and too many restrictions placed on independent strategic and tactical decision making by the firm – I feel for the business owners. Again as Paul alluded many of the insto’s staff just don’t have the real world experience, capability or flexibility to be of value at the frontline business manangement level.