The Turnbull government’s Royal Commission is putting the financial services industry under the spotlight, with many people wondering what to do if they have been a victim of bad financial advice.
Squirrel is a financial technology company that holds an Australian financial services licence (AFSL). ASIC alleges that from around January 2015, Squirrel marketed and sold services helping customers establish and operate self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF) to purchase established residential property.
A federal court judge has blasted troubled financial services group AMP for allowing its commission-hungry financial advisers to systematically rip off clients, ridiculing the company’s defence that there was just one “bad apple” and fining it $5.175m.
In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, Justice Michael Lee found AMP was “the right place” for greed and said it was arguable the penalty – which was more than Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) asked for – was “an inadequate reflection of the seriousness of the conduct” exposed in the case, but the law limited the fine he could impose.
The Asic filed the lawsuit in June last year after the banking royal commission exposed AMP for allowing its planners to “churn” customers into new insurance policies when there was nothing wrong with the old one.
Paul Nielsen was hit with the ban for his role in the operation of the managed investment schemes by Linchpin and Endeavour. ASIC found Nielsen's conduct in approving the investment of funds of the Investport Income Opportunity Fund in related entities constituted multiple contraventions of the Corporations Act.
