Queensland-based financial adviser, Thanh Quoc Tu, who misled clients, has been permanently banned from engaging in the provision of financial services by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
ASIC reported that Tu had acted dishonestly in relation to clients' funds and engaged in conduct to conceal his behaviour.
An ASIC investigation found that between September 2008 and December 2013, Tu had misled 18 separate individual client investors to invest approximately $9.1 million in various types of investment products, with only 10 per cent of the money being returned to investors.
ASIC said Tu had misled investors to believe that their funds had been invested in a specific range of investment products, which he instead traded in another manner or applied for his own use through his personal trading account.
For most of the period of his misconduct, Tu was employed as an adviser by Patersons Securities Limited in its Brisbane office and later, at Cognitive Wealth Pty Ltd.
As a result of these findings, ASIC ruled that Tu was not of good fame or character and that it has reason to believe Tu contravened a financial services law.
ASIC Commissioner, Peter Kell, said that Tu's misconduct was very serious.
"ASIC will ensure anyone who acts dishonestly and places their own interests ahead of those they advise will be removed from the financial services industry," Kell said.
Tu's banning follows ASIC obtaining Supreme Court orders on 19 December 2013 requiring him to immediately surrender all of his passports and any visa for any other country to the Registrar of the Supreme Court in Brisbane. The court also ordered that Tu be prohibited from leaving Australia without its consent.
