Gold Coast adviser banned for three years

The non-aligned adviser, Kyle Marshall, was an authorised representative of now folded Sentinel Private Wealth and a director of Vogue Planners, a corporate authorised representative of Sentinel.

He had already been banned from providing financial services for six years in April, after ASIC deduced he had conducted options trading on behalf of his clients on a discretionary basis when he was not authorised to do so.

The regulator found he had not complied with financial services laws and lacked fundamental knowledge and competency relevant to providing services.

Mr Marshall had provided personal advice to clients, recommending they invest in a share investment strategy involving trading in options operated by Rodney Peters, a director of Australian Share Registry.

The clients were said to have ultimately experienced large losses on their investments with Mr Peters.

ASIC found there were “significant flaws” in Mr Marshall’s process for providing his clients advice to back the share investment strategy.

In particular, ASIC ruled Mr Marshall had failed to act in the best interests of his clients, failing to disclose to them that a company of which he was a sole director would receive a commission from referring customers to Mr Peters.

ASIC said he gave inappropriate advice to clients who were inexperienced in shares and options, and generated statements of advice that did not accurately record the advice given or his clients’ circumstances, as well as failing to contain the level of detail needed to decide to act on the advice.

The regulator also stated that Mr Marshall did not understand the meaning of personal advice and had failed to record his communications with his clients.

The banning of Mr Marshall will be recorded on the publicly available Financial Advisers Register and the Banned and Disqualified Persons Register.

He will have the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.

Sentinel, now in liquidation, entered voluntary administration last year, after the licensee had entered an enforceable undertaking with ASIC in 2017.