In handing down the Federal Court’s final decision, Justice Michael O’Bryan ruled that the introductory clause contained in Dover’s Client Protection Policy was “misleading or deceptive” or “likely to mislead or deceive” within the meaning of s 1041H of the Corporations Act and s 12DA(1) of the ASIC Act and a “false or misleading representation” within the meaning of s 12DB(1)(i) of the ASIC Act.
Justice O’Bryan said in his judgment that the introductory clause was false, misleading or deceptive because the Client Protection Policy did not ensure that clients received the maximum protection available under the law.
The judgement noted that the evidence established that 19,402 clients received the Client Protection Policy in conjunction with a statement of advice
from Dover’s authorised representatives between September 2015 and March 2018.
“Rather, the limiting clauses in the policy (other than the Best Efforts Clause and the Continued Retainer Clause) purported to remove or dilute the protections that clients would otherwise have under the law,” Justice O’Bryan said.
“In effect, the Introductory Clause represented that the limiting clauses constituted the maximum protections available to clients under the law when that was not the case.”
The judgment caps off a rather eventful year for both Dover Financial and Mr McMaster after ASIC took the licensee to court in September last year.
ASIC alleged that Dover misled and deceived clients from September 2015, when it commenced using its Client Protection Policy, to March 2018 when Dover withdrew the policy in response to ASIC’s concerns.
It was concerned Dover’s Client Protection Policy:
- contained false and misleading representations as to the rights and protections available to clients;
- created a significant imbalance in Dover’s and its authorised representatives’ rights and obligations compared with those of clients; and
- sought to protect the interests of Dover and its authorised representatives by avoiding liability to clients for poor financial advice.
Since then, Mr McMaster has accused the Hayne royal commission for perpetuating a “false narrative” on Dover and releasing an interim report “full of deliberate misstatements”.
Dover Financial shut down its AFSL in June 2018 following an agreement with ASIC. However, Mr McMaster has always maintained that he was forced by ASIC to shut down the dealer group.
More to come.
I blame the FPA for everything that happened to Dover. Terry represents everything that is wrong with the FPA
And the FPA were on ASIC’s side against the little guy Terry
Why don’t ASIC and the FPA go after the big banks instead of Terry?
Terry also was in cahoots with the FPAs corrupt Professional Practice Program.
In evidence given at the Banking RC, McMaster said that at that time, Dover “would be in the top 10” largest licensees in Australia “by number of advisers”. Dover was no small fish.
Talk about using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. There is no doubt that the client protection policy was dodgy. What is in question is the time and money that ASIC is wasting on small, insignificant results whilst the big banks and AMP pillage with impunity.
Whilst handing out fines to big corps is painful for the shareholders the directors and managers of these dodgy organizations walk away scott free. Even Hartzer recently walked out the door with a payout of $2.7m which is more than most people earn in their entire working lives.
Cracking walnuts in time for the holidays. What a treat! Merry Christmas and a Happy new year to all!
I have been following the Dover story closely. As far as I know, these facts are already on the public record….
Dover gave ASIC a copy of the CPP almost four years ago. Dover actually volunteered for an audit back in 2016. How many AFSLs do you know who have volunteered for an audit? Not the sound of a company with something to hide.
Following the audit, Dover had been begging ASIC for feedback, even promising that all recommendations would be acted on immediately. For 18 months ASIC stalled and told them nothing…. until just before the RC. How convenient! A ready made scapegoat ready to be served up to Hayne at the RC.
The next stage of the process is apparently a penalty hearing where an appropriate fine is decided upon. I’m guessing ASIC won’t enjoy this process too much… For the first time Dover will be able to tell their side of the story and I’m tipping ASIC will not come out of it looking good.
Verdict: Reserve you judgement on Dover and McMaster until their side of the story is finally on the public record.
ok. let’s give him another chance. the penalty hearing is soon so we will wait until then.
i forbid anyone else to make any derogatory comments about mcmaster and dover until then.
please restrain yourselves until then.
Penalty hearing won’t be the end of the story actually. The Fin Review reported yesterday McMaster is “planning to commence litigation in 2020 against five law firms he claims were negligent in the advice they provided on the construction of the controversial legal waiver” (refer article entitled ‘Dover boss plots revenge after ASIC loss’). MLA lawyers is one of those 5 firms.
ha ha i get it. funny guy. but mcmaster is going to find out that being wrong is not negligent.
Time will tell. I foresee a number of problems with the approach, not the least of which is whether an indemnity should or would be available in circumstances where a civil penalty provision was breached. I imagine an indemnity insurer would resist such a claim and it may well be excluded under the policy terms in any case.
There are a number of actions ready to commence against Terry. How many times has he pleaded guilty this year.
They were McMaster own law firm. Is he going to sue himself for the insurance
Earlier this year he said “…lawyers who possess or profess expertise in a specialist area are subject to a higher duty of care than other lawyers. In the circumstances it seems…..MLA Lawyers are…liable to Dover.” He also said he “is not a direct or indirect owner” of MLA lawyers.
What does the M in MLA stand for?
Terry had the opportunity to present his case in court. He choose not to go into the witness box because too many lies would of been told.
Why don’t you go and read 130 paragraph full judgement handed down by the court last week. It is available on Federal Court web site. It was explain why McMaster and Dover are guilty. Terry gave his side of the story to the court and was found guilty.
Terry was to gutless to attain the Federal Court on Friday for him to hear the verdict. His own team on barristers were looking for a hole to crawl into
In English please?
Now how do we stop his new venture Curve accountants? No doubt he has set this one up dubiously but he is still pulling all the strings.
What if maybe, just maybe, Dover and McMaster actually cooperated at all times with the regulator and sought their guidance to ensure they didn’t contravene the law? what if ASIC deliberately misled Dover into thinking they were not concerned with the client protection policy until just weeks before the RC? Crickey!
Remember, this is the same regulator who accepts bribes from the banks and has refused to hand over their gift register. It’s also the same regulator who gave a misleading summary of dover’s operations to commissioner hayne, knowing that dover didn’t have a right of reply.
the judge may be right in his summary of the case of ASIC vs Dover, however the future case of Dover vs ASIC is going to be when everyone will get a chance to see how ASIC manipulated evidence, lied to the public and did the dirty work of the banks.
That would be AWESOME to see!
That would be a fascinating case to watch given that ASIC has never been successfully sued (someone please correct if this is wrong). One would assume ASIC would defend its position vigorously, so would be very interesting indeed.
Are u living in a fantasy world. Go to court and listen to what has been said. No defense from Terry.
The only people i would like to hear from on here are ex-advisers of Dover !! What did they think of him? Did he rip them off? Where you forced to use the Client Protection Statement with your SOA? Please advise if you can .. thank you
Dover adviser here.
I couldn’t get a single soa past or paid unless it was prefer and lodged with them. EVERY SINGLE ONE. if there was an issue we’d have to fix it before we would get paid.
My new licensee I could get away with murder and no one would know a thing. I’ve now been to two licensees since, both large and both independant. I can tell you Dover was better in every way.
Yes the CPP was provided Everytime, however it was used like an FSG and you would provide the same rundown as you would your FSG explaining all the ways for the client to make a complaint etc.
He never ripped anyone off, he actually let us accumulate a bill of nearly $20k of which he obviously recalled at shutdown.
I will never understand how this Dover thing happened… In my time in total I’ve been part of over 7 different licensee’s and even been apart of the operation of one and none came close to Dover.
Anyone can take what they want from this but it’s the truth from my experience.
To all the people fighting here as well, shame on you… This will happen to you if you’re not careful, if they can pull something of dovers size down over one paragraph id really hope you have air tight statements of advice…
Start working as a profession and a team and stand up for your fellow planners, mistakes happen and unless you’re perfect don’t berate the people trying to have a go at it.
Seven licensees? Why?
I was a Dover AR some years ago and Terry had his young nephew with acne and messed up hair do an SoA Audit on 8 files. We got the “All Clear” in writing and were happy with that. A few weeks later we got an e-mail from Terry saying that he had reported us to ASIC for multiple compliance breaches which triggered an ASIC investigation. We defended the accusation and showed ASIC that no training had been provided that was the cause of the alleged compliance breaches and pointed to the Corporations Act demonstrating that the breaches were not signifant, detrimental or systemic. ASIC accepted this and left us alone (thank God) but the point here is that Terry and his team of compliance specialists were incompetent and threw us under a bus without warning, training or any satisfactory explanation. We jumped ship shortly after and heard that ASIC was back at Dover asking more questions, then a year later he collapsed in the RC and was rightfully shut down.
people like terry mcmaster are holding back the financial planning profession, we want to move forward with professionalism and get on with the job of serving the Australian community.
terry, LEAVE US AT ONCE!
i think people who want to stay in financial advice after all this are truly, deeply mad. what’s the reward?
Who do you think you are? I’d rather someone like Terry actually standing up for the profession instead of a keyboard warrior like you?..
Your comment is the epitome of unprofessional…
someone still practicing in the industry. while you have been shut out terry. just leave. we don’t want you.
Thanks Terry, great insights from your keyboard. You stay a warrior and try not to collapse too often.
lol I’m not Terry, I just think you’re all quick to burn someone at the stake and honestly I’d love to see your air tight files… You really don’t understand the magnitude of him being pulled down over a paragraph being incorrect…
Are you really telling me that EVERY SINGLE FILE you have won’t have a paragraph or two incorrect?
How is it possible to accumulate 665 negative feedbacks?
Terry only stands up for himself. No one else
Terry McMaster was nothing but a narcissist and gets what he deserves !! Sign us up for a civil action…….I know of 10 planners he starved and wouldn’t release commissions. The ex dover planners are now tarred with his bad name and inability to be competent in his actions. I still laugh with his ridiculous collapse on stand after much smarter individual just destroyed him and his infantile personality. Great legacy to leave the masses with……
you are right. people haven’t met this guy. anyone who has met him will tell you if he isn’t allowed to be a financial planner he won’t let anyone else be a financial planner either. he will be a thorn in our backside forever more to come. he has already been told to shut down – did so himself – yet comes on these forums and constantly posts his rants.
just leave us alone terry for god sake. you have been shut down. accept it and move on and leave us in peace. we already have so many other headaches to contend with on a daily basis.
I understand and accept that the Client Protection Policy document was ‘non-compliant’, and deserves some sort of penalty, however this was remedied with the knowledge of the regulators, when identified, before the RC. My issue is I don’t feel confident about seeing an apparent ‘two tiered’ system, for some. Q. Where and when are those in the Big Banks going to be charged! and brought to account! for real client detriment $$$???
anyone have an update on class action from ex dover advisers against terry ?
will criminal prosecution follow though? civil penalty seems really generous for this guy. what about other companies he may be operating as a shadow director.
i have spoken to many ex dover advisers, every single one’s feedback is you do not want to go anywhere near this guy.
As an ex Dover AR, Terry is toxic and killed a lot of planners businesses. He should be sued for destroying innocent people’s lives. I’m glad ASIC is attacking him, some karma for what he has done to others.
What did he possibly do to any of our businesses?? I was a smaller practice at the time, they helped me transition out no problems? Ohhhhhh you’re probably talking about the fact you were given a loan in good faith on fees and you’re not actually a good planner and had the reserves aside to pay for unforeseen circumstances… Got you.
He’s not your father and he shouldn’t have to hold your hand financially ESPECIALLY being a planner yourself…
Include the banks, AMP and Dover, then the licensees of 50% of the AR were found to have a case to answer at the RC….oh joy!!!
Meanwhile AMP is ripping off dead people, charging fees for now service, running a ponzi scheme via BOLR and ripping off their advisers and nothign happens
that is no excuse for terrys illegal activities
what illegal activities?? It was a paragraph wrong in ONE document which he had put forward 4 years prior to ASIC for approval… He is one of the ONLY licensee’s who requested an audit of ASIC and he even said if you find anything I will immediately act on your recommendations… Please please please reply to this WHAT WAS SO ILLEGAL that it required his WHOLE career to be destroyed and ASIC to pull down all those planning business overnight?
Harassment, Blackmail and Extortion. Many of whom were small businesses that you took for a ride and that you set out to destroy in your career. It’s great to see you getting what you deserve. We love to watch you squirm here in this forum, on the 6pm national news and in all the papers. Have you googled yourself lately? Your name is forever tarnished. Your family must be very proud. No one use Curve accountants in Moorabbin. Its Terry firm.
If you read the decision it was not one paragraph at all. Both the heading and numerous clauses in the CPP were identified and discussed by the judge. ASIC did not “pull down all those planning business(es) overnight”. The planning businesses were collateral damage when Dover’s licence was cancelled after McMaster requested the cancellation of Dover’s AFSL. ASIC is in a no-win situation. They would be pilloried if they failed to take action because as a regulator they are responsible with preventing consumer harm and enforcing the law. At the same time, they get attacked for doing their job. Ultimately it is the AFSL’s responsibility to observe the law, something the apologists in this forum seem to have a hard time accepting.
Terry tried to send us broke as he was approaching the RC…..He got what he deserved….not to be trusted
no he didn’t. please explain how he did this? most advisers moved on with their businesses.
[quote=What’s was $$ damage ]ASIC please confirm how many of the 19,402 clients were actually negatively financially effected by the ‘client protection policy’ ? [/quote][quote=What’s was $$ damage ]ASIC please confirm how many of the 19,402 clients were actually negatively financially effected by the ‘client protection policy’ ? [/quote]
The answer would be…..Zero/Zilch/None
Yes and God forbid a business trying to protect itself from frivolous claims from clients who take no responsibility for their own poor, incomplete responses or tardiness of decision making. If anyone’s read the policy there was nothing Orwellian about it and is quite similar to policies I’ve signed for lawyers I’ve retained over the years. Apparently this “Justice” has the same level of incompetence, lack of logic and knowledge of financial services and the practicalities of it as Hayne. Both a waste of taxpayer money and an embarrassment of this country.
110% to everything you’ve said. Absolutely disgraceful. Bullying of this nature against any other occupation would not be tolerated anywhere. Our representative bodies are absolutely useless!
What a loser
oh Burke… Go home you nobody.
As a former Dover AR, can someone please let us know what the implications are for an ex-Dover AR? The whole industry has been stressful the past 12 months… is there more mess to come if this for former Dover ARs?
As a Dover AR your screwed just like the rest of us
i think terry will be fined $6m but he has made a lot of money so its all good. he lives in blacktown which is a really nice suburb in Sydney i think he will be more than fine haters gonna hate hate hate
Blacktown – really nice? You have GOT to be kidding! I gather you were NOT saying it tongue-in-cheek and were serious. You’re obviously from around Melbourne and nowhere near Sydney. Blacktown is a low socio-economic demographic and quite undesirable. Why would you make such a statement without obviously knowing this? What is your real agenda with such a statement? Shame on you!
Get your facts right “anonymous” Terry lives in Black Rock Victoria
Soon to be Blacktown if he’s very lucky
I would not want to be one of the five law firms that reviewed Dover’s client protection policy and did not warn Dover it breached the Corporations Act. Nor their professional indemnity insurer.
ASIC has called their reports incompetent.
Well, when it comes to incompetent ASIC would know
And yet the court decision states “On 6 July 2018, Mr McMaster wrote to ASIC requesting the immediate cancellation of Dover’s AFSL” (see para 84 of decision) and Dover/McMaster didn’t join these five law firms as parties in the federal court case against ASIC. If McMaster requested the cancellation of the AFSL as indicated in the decision, how can he claim he suffered loss as a consequence of these firms reviewing the CPP and not him requesting the cancellation of the AFSL?
He had no choice to shut down. Media reported it incorrectly and so did the RC. Terry was ordered to shut down and has tried under freedom of information to obtain this information to substantiate his case. So far asic have breached the act and not adhered to this law.
Sorry but judges don’t make findings of fact and publish them in a decision unless they have the evidence to substantiate such a finding. If you don’t believe me read the case yourself https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2019/2019fca1932
If, as you say Dover was ordered to shut down, how would McMaster as Dover’s RM not have a copy of ‘the order’? Why would a RM need to obtain it under FOI?
Maybe instead of reporting on easy facts you could dig a bit deeper and find out what really has happened?
Not sure what jj needs to see for the full truth, Dover got done, quite rightly, for misleading and deceptive conduct. If you want the full story go read the judgement. This continued assertion by so called ifa’s (that don’t meet the corps act definition of independent) that the big dealer group is bad , and smaller (and potentially non bank) is always good is a joke. Bad conduct can arise anywhere and should be the subject of action.
Obviously you work at one of the protected cartel banks or AMP
Anon, you are right, it is a big joke.
ASIC took Dover to court and won because of misleading and deceptive conduct that had zero actual financial impact on any of the 19k clients. Dover lose their licence and Terry can’t be a RM anymore.
ASIC work with the banks/AMP and issue them a meaningless fine, even though their misleading and deceptive conduct runs into the billions of dollars. The banks/AMP don’t lose their licence and the executives that oversaw all of this are allowed to stay in the industry.
In the words of Justice O’Bryan “Dover, acting through Mr McMaster, required its authorised representatives to incorporate into, or provide with, statements of advice provided to clients a document entitled “Client Protection Policy”. For the reasons discussed below, the title of that document was [b]highly misleading and an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak. The document did not protect clients. To the contrary, it purported to strip clients of rights and consumer protections they enjoyed under the law.[/b][b][/b] Some 19,402 clients of Dover’s authorised representatives were provided with the Client Protection Policy in conjunction with a statement of advice.” (at paragraph 3)
It was ultimately our FSG not a client protection policy and my God it’s the name they’re pissing on…
All Terry tried to do was put some of the responsibility back to the client. Not rip them off..
you don’t get it. you can’t contradict the corps act and avoid liability by excluding your liability in the provision of financial services by putting it back on to the client.
i don’t think many advisers understand – or want to understand – the enormity of their legal obligations. the code of ethics along with everything else makes it impossible to provide advice.
after 20 years and a highly profitable business, including already having a fasea approved degree i am getting out.
No I very much do understand and that’s the point. Absolutely he breached here, however this is no grounds for decimating a 400 strong adviser licensee. WHAT harm was caused? I’d even understand if he tried to use the protection policy against a consumer but he never did…
Terry himself handed in this client protection policy to have it checked by ASIC to make sure it was compliant and he wasn’t stepping over any boundaries. As soon as they noted the issue it was removed from the document and EVERY SINGLE CLIENT from EVERY SINGLE ADVISER was provided with an amended copy and an explanation of why it was changed.
So I’m sorry but he followed direction and tried to be proactive about clients protections and he gets destroyed…
The reason is given at para 128 of the decision as follows. “The contravening conduct was widespread and there is a public interest associated with the Court declaring the conduct to be unlawful.” and at para 116 that “…on each occasion a statement of advice was given to a client along with the Client Protection Policy, there was a separate contravention of the statutory prohibitions. That is because there was a separate communication to a client that was misleading..” The decision shows the law was broken 19,402 times. Are you seriously suggesting that this is not a serious breach of the law?
Oh my you muppet… I just said yes he did, however the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. A bank has done $$ damage to clients and walked away with pay a fine here or fix this issue there. Dover had one paragraph wrong and was destroyed. AND HE AMENDED THE ISSUE. it would have been something if he’d said no but nothing happened to hurt a client…
Speaking of Dover’s responsibilities. Refer to 6th dotpoint. https://www.afca.org.au/news/latest-news/29-financial-firms-breach-afca-member-requirements/
That is because Dover no longer has a license so the membership is pointless, I don’t blame him for not paying, its a money grab by a govt department. refer RG165
Right so just because Dover no longer has a licence, any complaints about Dover just get ignored? Now where does that leave ex-clients? Do you even know what AFCA does?
Asic apparently had the protection policy to review for 2 years and did nothing. Any civil/criminal action against them? Of course not.
Yet Hostplus can create the appearance on their website it only costs $1.50 per week to invest in the fund…..(protected species given Donations to Labour) and then we can compare this against the banks behavior (donations to Liberals) and so who is the perfect person to take a fall. I guess we can say that Dover is the Royal Commission scalp, fall guy and ASIC got their man in the end. I was never a big fan, but I do truly believe the industry will be worse off for not having these guys in it. RIP Dover.
AS an ex-adviser about time that McMaster got his just deserts. A lie and a thief of the highest order.
Aww that’s cute liking your own comment that many time, lol. You have no idea what you’re talking about mate. You’re an ex adviser because you’ll have cooked files you’re scared to stand up against but trust me they still will be audited!
Flogging properties or churning insurance champ? Sounds like one of the very flogs who Terry hated.
yeah anyone who doesn’t conform with terry being the greatest is a criminal or has a poor compliance record. in fact terry is famous for having a dealer group that housed these very same people.
give me a break
AA sounds like you might be an ex adviser for a reason. Were you one of the ones they got rid of because you wouldn’t follow their compliance process?
ASIC please confirm how many of the 19,402 clients were actually negatively financially effected by the ‘client protection policy’ ?
I trust the full truth will be covered in the “more to come”. It hasn’t been in this article
What are you referring to? The Federal Court hasn’t published the decision on its website yet.
They were a serious player until I found out that you were on your own with at least a $100k deductible if there was a complaint against you. If you went to Dover you bought compliance support based on price.