Former Westpac adviser permanently banned
A former Westpac financial adviser who retrospectively created advice documents and reproduced a client’s signature has been permanently banned from providing financial services.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced today that the man, Phillip Emidio Bruni, of Perth, had been banned following surveillance of advice provided by him when he was an authorised representative of Westpac and The FinancialLink Group.
ASIC said that in the course of its surveillance it had become aware that Bruni had been dishonest and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct including by retrospectively creating advice documents and reproducing a client’s signature.
It said ASIC had reviewed meta data from Bruni’s advice documents and found that in response to statutory notices, he had created replicas of statements of advice documents that he was required by law to create and retain but had not.
ASIC said that, additionally, Bruni attempted to cover up his failure to obtain a signed ‘authority to proceed’ from a client and copied and pasted the client’s signature from a ‘fact find’ document without the client’s consent or approval.
It said Bruni did not tell his licensee or ASIC the documents were not copies of original document and only admitted to creating the replica documents and the authority to proceed when questioned by the regulator.
Recommended for you
Government has introduced a bill to Parliament to legislate the first stream of the QAR reforms.
ASIC now has a 1:1 ratio when it comes to court success in the enforcement of crypto activities and more action is expected as Treasury seeks to introduce a regulatory framework.
A leading governance body has hit out at “specialist interest groups proposing ad hoc law reform” when it comes to reforms of financial services legislation and believes an independent body is needed.
The release of ALRC’s final report into financial services legislation has highlighted financial advice as a “significant” focus as it seeks to reduce costs and help advisers understand their obligations, alongside the Quality of Advice Review.
