The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) has announced a call for an Extraordinary General Meeting has not been successful after more than 100 of the 230 forms it received supporting the meeting were found to be invalid.
The AFA stated it had reviewed all the forms it had received and that 103 forms in total were invalid with 25 forms provided by non-members of the AFA, 28 forms unable to be verified because the AFA member was incorrectly identified and 50 forms were duplicates.
The Association added that it was in contact with 24 members where forms had been received in their name but other details provided were insufficient to fully identify whether the member had completed the form. In the event that was their intention the AFA said it would help them complete the form.
The EGM was called by Mark Dunsford, who is a Fellow of the AFA, and a founding member of the Life Insurance Customer Group, who has been informed by the Association that less than 5% of the voting members of the AFA were represented among the valid forms.
As a result, the AFA would not be able to take his special resolution to change the AFA Constitution to the membership at this time.
AFA National President, Deborah Kent said the Association’s Board would call an EGM under the governance provisions of the Corporations Act at the time the requisite 5% of voting members was reached.
While current AFA by-laws allow a meeting to be called at the request of 100 or more members, changes to the Corporations Act means this is no longer applicable.
The AFA by-laws state the Board must call an extraordinary general meeting if it is validly requested by a group of members with at least 5% of the votes that may be cast at the extraordinary general meeting; or 100 members or more, who are entitled to vote at the extraordinary general meeting.
However, the by-laws also state these conditions must operate “in accordance with the [Corporations] act” which was changed on 19 March 2015 to remove the ability for 100 or more members to call a meeting, leaving the 5% benchmark as the only measure by which a meeting can be called.
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Maybe the forms were invalid because the AFA changed membership numbers and failed to inform their members. I used my membership number from the certificate the AFA issued me in 2010 and guess what? It’s invalid.
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