Following an ASIC investigation, the Supreme Court of Queensland has made orders restraining Advanced Wealth Financial Services Pty Ltd and Richard Gardner from carrying on a financial services business.
In a public statement, ASIC said Mr Gardner and Advanced Wealth had advised clients to set up SMSFs to facilitate the purchase of investment properties in relation to which Mr Gardner received substantial commissions.
According to ASIC Mr Gardner and Advanced Wealth are not currently licensed or authorised to provide financial services.
ASIC commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland against Advanced Wealth and Mr Gardner on 14 December last year.
On 12 February 2019, the court ordered that Mr Gardner and Advanced Wealth pay ASIC’s costs of the application, fixed at $10,000.
The Court declared that between 29 April 2016 and 9 November 2018, both Advanced Wealth and Mr Gardner contravened section 911A of the Corporations Act 2001 by providing financial advice to clients to set up SMSFs to facilitate the purchase of investment properties in Australia without holding an AFSL.
It also declared that Mr Gardner, as the sole director and responsible decision-maker for Advanced Wealth, was knowingly concerned in Advanced Wealth’s contravention of section 911A of the Corporations Act between 29 April 2016 and 9 November 2018.
Throw out all all financial market licensing…lets go back to good old “buyer beware”. The amount lost due to scams is infinitesimal compared to all the money spent on Government bureaucracy and financial industry compliance.
Industry could pay 1% of what they spend now on compliance, into a fidelity fund for victims of scams and it would probably grow, not shrink!
This country, its politicians and it media overreact to the vocal minorities who claim scams or fraud, and those people are probably in that situation out of their own greed anyway. 99.9% of the population is honest!
This country is regulating itself out of existence. No economy can survive with 40% of its working population in Government bureaucracy from local to Federal. Yes, 40%! Look it up!
Yes, I am reading this correctly? A $10K fine only! Financial planners are getting lifetime bans for delivering relatively minor advice without an SOA. The regulators need to get serious and bring the property industry into the corporations law!
Total BS. The bloke should be banned for life from (1) being a company director and (2) holding any sort of licence involved in the financial services industry. The court’s response is a disgrace and an insult to all those who lost money to this fraudster.
The regulator and law makers are great at increasing compliance and onerous requirements on legitimate advisory service providers, namely financial planners, accountants and mortgage brokers. Yet the problems they need to fixed are in the areas of unlicensed, unqualified and inexperienced people or property spruikers yet we are the ones given the bad name.
Royal Commission is another example of where they have got this all wrong.
Maybe consideration should be given where commissions are obtained without appropriate licensing (or by fraud/deception), that the commissions or a very high percentage of them are required to be paid into a compensation fund to people unwittingly involved in these schemes? Or the Court sanctions can include a “refund directive”. The judiciary may be hamstrung if the laws don’t facilitate such a ruling by them. Nowadays a Director Penalty Notice can be sought for unpaid Employee Superannuation, so why a similar penalty for Spruikers/Unlicensed operators.
That seems so much more logical than the current strategy of adding another compliance document onto the legitimate advisers.
so unfair for the poor people who would have fallen for this and bought shit investments … whilst this guy gets to enjoy huge commissions and live it up.
The court made restraining orders?
So what. That means nothing.
Where is the big penalty similar to that which financial planners receive. when they are barred.
This is a joke. An unbelievable joke.
This guy is free to just start up again doing the same things.
He made a lot of commission from this – probably never disclosed – and he gets nothing.
A $10,000 court costs charge.
As I said a joke and a complete disgrace.
I’d like to see ASIC devote some resources to trawling the internet for all property spruikers to ascertain whether they’re giving advice they aren’t licensed for. They might find a number of Richard Gardner’s.