Former ANZ authorised representative Christopher Harris was banned for 10 years after he was found to have not acted in the best interests of clients, and failed to provide statements of advice and fee disclosure statements.
In addition to being an authorised representative of then ANZ-owned dealer group Millennium3 between 2008 and 2017, Mr Harris had also been an authorised representative of Dover between 2017 and 2018, and had misrepresented himself as being authorised to provide financial advice when he was director of Money Works Financial Planning, which was appointed as the corporate authorised representative for Futuro Financial Services in 2018.
Melbourne adviser Bimaljeet Sekhon, a former authorised representative of Count Financial, was also banned by ASIC for three years.
A review of Ms Sekhon’s advice had found she had not made reasonable inquiries into, and based judgement on, her clients’ relevant circumstances, and that she had not appropriately scoped her advice.
“Ms Sekhon failed to consider some clients’ existing insurance arrangements and the potential impact of the recommended products’ premiums on her clients’ retirement savings,” ASIC said.
Further, ASIC also banned Sydney-based risk adviser Alan Davies for three years.
Mr Davies, who was the sole director and authorised representative of Risk Insurance Consultants from 2013 to 2020, was found to have not complied with financial services laws and the regulator said he was not adequately trained to provide financial services.
“Specifically, ASIC found that Mr Davies had failed to properly investigate and document his clients’ relevant financial objectives and personal circumstances when providing life insurance advice,” the regulator said.
“When recommending that his clients switch insurance products, Mr Davies also failed to consider whether a switch was in his clients’ best interests and whether his clients could have achieved their objectives within their existing insurance products.”
Mr Harris and Ms Sekhon’s bans were part of ASIC’s Wealth Management Major Institutions Portfolio focusing on misconduct at Australia’s largest financial institutions, while Mr Davies’ ban came about as a result of the regulator’s Life Insurance Lapse Data Project, based on data provided to ASIC by life insurers around high-risk advisers who “met specific thresholds relating to lapsed policies”.
Interesting. Chris Harris is a bad adviser everywhere except Dover. Dover checked everything SOA…
Where/when will licensees be held accountable? I am over the advisor being thrown under the bus when we have to continually put up with changing processes, procedures, templates, FSGs and so on. And we have dumb fk personnel from licensees tell us what to do when they have not had any experience themselves providing advice or running a business. About time advisors are refunded fees from useless licensees!
you really don’t get it hey? These people did the wrong thing, if you’re following the rules and you can stand behind your advice putting someone in a better position you’re fine. None of these people simply made one or two mistakes, their issues are clearly systemic. Stop being paranoid.
At face value these people all seem to be penalised for not having the right paperwork. Strange that ASIC seem to want to get these people and let the major criminals (ie the majors) get away with fines that the shareholders end up paying. This is not regulation, this is persecution.
Because to public servants, all they understand is red tape and paperwork. They don’t care that clients for the most part don’t want paperwork – they just want advice, service and transactions all done in an easy to understand, easy to do way. Of course ASIC never care to ask consumers what they want – they already apparently know what is in their best interests
I’ve always wondered why Accountants who can potentially cause greater detriment to clients (poor advice, poor structuring, poor disclosure, poor asset protection & potential bankruptcy stemming from any of these areas) as well as to the nation (loss of tax revenue if they’ve skirted laws and done dodgy tax-savings deeds/claims) don’t have to provide any form of disclosure, basis-for-advice, best interests, FDSes, Opt-Ins or Statements of Advice, but an Adviser who may have the ability through negligence to affect a clients’ Super account and/or Insurance costs have all of these extra requirements. And this is the opinion of an Accountant & Adviser. Of course this is putting aside the potential career-destruction and personal bankruptcy/ruin that’s possible for an Adviser if ASIC feel they’re not ticking the boxes of the ridiculous, overreaching compliance documentation.
And if you are an unlicensed crook you can get away with anything and remain under the radar without ASIC having a clue.