ASIC hands down adviser ban for ‘fees for no service’ conduct
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has delivered a 10-year ban on a Queensland-based financial adviser after she failed to report ‘fees for no service’ (FFNS) conduct.
Kiriley Roper was a director, shareholder and financial adviser at Lighthouse Partners, a corporate authorised representative of Australian financial services (AFS) licensee Crown Wealth Group, who was aware of FFNS conduct occurring with 14 clients between January 2022 and October 2023.
According to the corporate watchdog, Roper was “aware” of the conduct and failed to report it to the licensee, investigate it and “implement adequate systems to prevent [it] from reoccurring”.
An ASIC investigation also found that Roper had “enriched herself at the expense of affected clients” after failing to refund fees amounting to $81,652.71 plus interest.
Roper has been banned for 10 years from providing financial services, performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business, and controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business.
The ban, which came into effect on 30 June, follows the cancellation of Crown Wealth Group’s AFSL on 13 March last year after the company entered voluntary administration.
The adviser ban follows cancellation of the licensee’s AFSL…”after the company entered voluntary administration”.
Presumably this means any consumer compensation for wrongdoing will be funded by innocent advisers via CSLR, and the perpetrators will phoenix into another entity and do it all again.
compo for FFnS isn’t funded by the CSLR.
Maybe not. But if this happened on their watch with one adviser, you can bet there are plenty of other issues and advisers that that will be CSLR candidates. Licensees are generally capital light businesses with flexible cost structures. It’s unusual for one to go into voluntary administration. Unless they are taking advantage of the government run CSLR scam.