The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has banned another financial adviser licensed by MWL Financial Services in relation to advice to invest superannuation monies into the Shield Master Fund.
The corporate regulator banned Melbourne-based adviser Wade Lance Spooner for eight years from providing financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business or performing any function involved in the carrying on of such a business.
ASIC stated Spooner gave inappropriate advice to some clients that was not in their best interests when he recommended they invest the majority of their super into the high-growth and growth classes of Shield, which were high-risk investments.
Spooner, who was a member of MWL’s investment committee, also provided statements of advice to clients that contained false and misleading statements that suggested they would receive better returns by investing their super into Shield, with these statements claiming it had a higher-performing track record against other super funds when it had only been in existence for a short period.
As such, ASIC said it had reason to believe Spooner was not a fit and proper person and was likely to contravene a financial services law and banned him from 25 July onwards, with its action recorded on the regulator’s Banned and Disqualified Register.
In response to the ban, and on the same day, Spooner lodged an application with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) seeking a review of ASIC’s decision, an application for a stay and confidentiality orders pending the outcome of the review.
On 25 September, the ART heard the application for a stay and confidentiality orders and on 20 October refused both requests, but the review of ASIC’s decision remains ongoing.
Spooner is the seventh person linked to MWL to be banned since late July when former advisers of the group, Rocco D’Amelio and Robert Crossing, were banned for seven years and six years respectively.
In July, two more advisers – Matthew Simon Bradley and Isaac Jacob McQueen – were banned for eight and four years respectively.
In August, ASIC cancelled MWL’s Australian financial services licence and banned director Nicholas Maikousis for 10 years and also banned responsible manager and compliance manager Robert John Tohill for five years.
