ASIC has permanently banned a former Commonwealth Financial Planning financial planner in its latest action against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia subsidiary.
The regulator has prevented Ricky David Gillespie of Southport, Queensland from providing any financial services after it found he forged client signatures and failed to comply with financial services laws.
He was a senior financial planner at Commonwealth Financial Planning Limited (CFPL) between 2006 and 2009.
A spokesperson for CFPL said it was important to note that the company had discovered the issues with Gillespie and alerted ASIC.
“In addition, we have effectively completed the remediation of clients that had received inappropriate advice from Mr Gillespie and we have commenced a significant program of work to provide advisers with the tools and resources to ensure the delivery of consistent quality financial advice to our clients,” CFPL said in a statement.
“This banning is between Mr Gillespie and ASIC and does not relate to CFPL.”
The Gillespie trail
However, in June, ASIC accepted an enforceable undertaking from former CFPL employee, Joe Chan, following an investigation into the advice provided by several Commonwealth financial advisers.
As part of the undertaking, Chan agreed not to provide financial services in any capacity for a minimum of two years.
This ruling follows investigations of other former CFPL financial advisers, Don Nguyen, Simon Langton, Christopher Baker, Anthony Awkar and Jane Duncan.
On October 25 last year, ASIC accepted an enforceable undertaking from CFPL requiring it to review its risk-management framework and address deficiencies.
In the latest case, the watchdog found that Gillespie was guilty of a number of infractions during 2008 and 2009.
These include:
- failing to comply with financial services laws;
- forging clients’ signatures on documents such as a direct debit request, transaction without advice documents, confidential fact finder and financial services guide receipts;
- creating false file notes;
- engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct in issuing financial product information in the form of a marketing letter which contained representations that were false or misleading;
- providing advice to a client that was not appropriate in the circumstances and
- charging excessive fees.
“ASIC considers Mr Gillespie’s conduct to be serious,” said ASIC commissioner, Peter Kell.
“Mr Gillespie’s wrongdoing was not an isolated incident. Instead, Mr Gillespie engaged in a series of conscious and deliberate acts designed to disguise and conceal his non-compliance with statutory requirements and policies put in place by CFPL.”
Mousa mess
In related news, the regulator has accepted an enforceable undertaking from former Storm representative James Mousa, a financial adviser based in Cairns.
Mousa is the manager of BDO Private Wealth (NTH QLD) Pty Limited and an authorised representative of Australian Financial Services Limited.
The action follows an ASIC investigation into advice provided by Mousa to his clients between August 2007 and August 2012.
In a statement, the watchdog said it had concerns that Mousa did not demonstrate that he had a reasonable basis for some advice provided or that he had determined the risk tolerance of clients before providing advice.
Mousa has undertaken to complete specified courses of professional development within six months and to submit to a regime of supervision, audit and review of the financial services he provides to clients by an independent senior financial planner for a period of two years.
He was previously an authorised representative of Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd and Storm Financial Ltd.
