AAT varies ASIC ban of former ANZ adviser
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) has varied the ban of Sydney-based former adviser Lisa Lee from eight years to six.
Lee was banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in May for falsifying documents while a representative of ANZ.
Lee was banned from providing financial services and appealed the decision to the AAT who modified it on 4 November, 2021.
The AAT noted she had suffered significantly already from loss of employment and was sole breadwinner as a single mother.
The banning officially started from 29 January, 2021, and the term would continue on from that date.
ASIC found when Lee was a representative of ANZ, she falsely witnessed binding nomination of beneficiary forms for 17 clients, backdated documents, and falsified a client’s signature on documents.
Lee was a representative of ANZ between 5 June, 2010, and 15 June, 2017, and then worked at Infocus Securities Australia between 19 September, 2017, and 19 November, 2018.
Lee’s banning had been recorded on ASIC’s Financial Adviser Register (FAR) and the Banned and Disqualified Persons Register.
Recommended for you
As the first quarter of 2024 comes to a close, Money Management looks back on the corporate regulator’s bans and AFSL cancellations in the financial advice sector.
Insignia Financial is holding ‘relatively steady’ onto its rank as Australia’s second-largest financial advice licensee after the Godfrey Pembroke exit but Count is hot on its heels.
Liberal senator Slade Brockman has said the government needs to have a “cold hard look” at the level of regulation in the financial advice space and the costs of running a business.
FAAA chief executive, Sarah Abood, has warned changes in the first tranche of the QAR legislation around advice fees documentation could create more work for advisers rather than less.