Internal ASIC emails shed new light on Dover closure

In an email dated 8 June 2018, seen by ifa, ASIC staffer Angela Friend noted to executive Tim Mullaly ifa’s article that Dover would shut down its AFSL. Her email read:

Hi, have you seen that IFA are reporting exclusively that Terry McMaster has written to his ARs [authorised representatives] advising them of the cancellation of the Dover AFSL? Not sure if anyone spoke to [editor] Aleks [Vickovich] today but we can expect follow up media calls soon.

In response, Mr Mullaly told Ms Friend on the next day that ASIC “could say something along the lines of”:

As part of an ongoing investigation commenced in 2017, ASIC served a notice of hearing on Dover that ASIC was minded to suspend or cancel Dover’s AFSL. As a result of this notice, Dover and Mr McMaster have advised that, amongst other things, Dover will cease providing financial services. At this stage, ASIC does not intend to comment further. ASIC’s investigation is continuing.

A couple of days after that, on 11 June, ASIC released a statement around Dover’s closure using wording almost identical to that in Mr Mullaly’s email.

Mr McMaster has denied ever intentionally shutting down Dover.

“Tim deliberately made misleading and deceptive public statements about the circumstances of Dover’s closure, to divert bad publicity from ASIC to Dover,” he said.

“And to help hide the fact that ASIC had been covertly conspiring to close Dover for more than two years. Tim Mullaly’s colleagues, senior executives, most of whom know he was lying, went along with him.”

More to come.

Adrian Flores

Adrian Flores is a deputy editor at Momentum Media, focusing mainly on banking, wealth management and financial services. He has also written for Public Accountant, Accountants Daily and The CEO Magazine.

You can contact him on [email protected].