The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has banned two former financial advisers, authorised by different licensees, over advice to roll over superannuation into the First Guardian Master Fund and failing to act in the best interests of their clients.
The corporate watchdog stated it had banned Rhys James Rolls Reilly for 10 years from providing any financial services or being involved in an entity that carries on a financial services business or performs any function involved in such a business, and suspended the Australian financial services licence of Conexus Group, of which Reilly is the sole director.
“ASIC found Mr Reilly engaged in serious misconduct, including accepting conflicted remuneration, making false or misleading statements to clients, failing to act in clients’ best interests and prioritising his own interests over those of clients,” the regulator stated, adding he was not a fit and proper person, not competent to provide financial services and likely to contravene financial services laws in the future.
“The misconduct primarily related to advice recommending investments in the First Guardian Master Fund, including advice to roll over significant superannuation balances into this product,” it said, noting Reilly failed to properly investigate the suitability of the investment for certain clients and exposed them to unacceptable levels of risk.
Additionally, it found he accepted $100,000 in payments that were conflicted remuneration, failed to disclose those payments to clients and while recommending clients invest in First Guardian, made false or misleading representations in some statements of advice (SOA), stating he received no benefits capable of influencing his advice.
Reilly was an authorised representative of Interprac under the corporate authorised representative of Rhys Reilly Pty Ltd from 29 March 2017 to 20 May 2025, after which he was authorised directly by Interprac from 21 May 2025 to 15 August 2025. He became a director of Conexus Group on 5 March 2024 and an authorised representative from 5 August 2025.
The regulator added it had suspended the licence of Conexus Group as it believed under the governance and control of Reilly it was likely to contravene its obligations under the Corporations Act.
The banning order and licence suspension took effect from 8 April 2026 and are recorded on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register and the Banned and Disqualified Register.
Reilly, who remains under ASIC investigation, has the right to apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) for a review of its decisions.
ASIC has also banned former financial adviser Shane Monte Silva for five years after he failed to act in certain clients’ best interests when recommending they switch their superannuation funds to invest in schemes including the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian.
Monte Silva was an authorised representative of Financial Services Group Australia, now in liquidation, from 24 May 2023 to 10 March 2025 while employed as an adviser at AS Financial Planning, and between July and August 2023 provided advice to five clients to switch superannuation funds and invest in Shield and First Guardian.
After reviewing that advice, ASIC found “an adviser of his experience should have been aware that he was not acting in the clients’ best interests by providing them with an SOA in his or another adviser’s name, containing material misleading information that recommended they roll over their entire superannuation savings into one or more high-risk products”.
It noted the advice was given in circumstances where the fact find had been carried out by an unlicensed third-party referrer, the SOA was prepared by a paraplanner and Monte Silva only spoke with the client for the first time during a phone call between the client and third-party referrer.
The banning order took effect from 11 December 2025, has been recorded on the Financial Advisers Register and the Banned and Disqualified Register, and Monte Silva has made an application to the ART to review ASIC’s decision.
Jason Spits
SENIOR JOURNALIST
Jason is a senior journalist with Benchmark Media and writes for the selfmanagedsuper website and magazine and smstrusteenews website. He has covered financial services since 1999 and has written about life insurance, superannuation, investment management and financial advice, in both a freelance and in-house capacity, and also did a brief stint as a media manager for an industry association. He has been the editor of trade titles Money Management and Financial Standard, and was most recently senior journalist with life insurance title Riskinfo.
Articles by Jason