ASIC has been slow to act on a serious complaint made against a financial planner within one of Australia’s major dealer groups.
Documents provided to InvestorDaily reveal the complaint lodged with ASIC involves serious compliance issues, mainly involving the initial financial planning fact find.
It is alleged the client files of the planner in question contained segments relating to the fact find that were common in a few cases.
In addition, the risk profiles of several different clients were all the same.
These clients did not share similar financial circumstances or lifestyles and included retirees, disabled individuals, and people who were unemployed. However, they were all assessed as being appropriate for an aggressive growth strategy.
Furthermore, the adviser’s files allegedly reported that the same clients had specifically requested a 50 per cent portfolio allocation to listed property trust (LPT) investments, and doubt has been raised over whether some clients actually understood the definition of an LPT.
It is alleged the adviser paid other staff cash incentives to direct all client referrals to him.
The original letter of complaint detailing these matters was lodged with ASIC on 30 October 2008.
After receiving no subsequent correspondence from the corporate watchdog, the complainants followed up with ASIC 10 days later with an email seeking confirmation the original letter had been sighted.
The email was prompted by concern that some of the files in question were possibly being cleaned up before investigators could view them.
ASIC replied on 10 November 2008 that the complaint had been received and that it had been forwarded to its internal misconduct and breach reporting team for investigation.
At that time the complaint was also assigned a reference number and the complainants were told ASIC would be in touch in due course.
“We deal with most complaints within 28 days, however if we need to make external enquiries this may take longer. We will inform you of our decision as soon as possible,” ASIC said in its response.
