{"id":47345,"date":"2019-11-27T12:04:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T01:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=47345"},"modified":"2019-12-04T06:28:42","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T19:28:42","slug":"court-finds-dover-client-protection-policy-false-misleading-or-deceptive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2019\/11\/27\/court-finds-dover-client-protection-policy-false-misleading-or-deceptive\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Finds Dover Client Protection Policy False, Misleading or Deceptive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Federal Court of Australia has found Dover Financial Advisers engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In a release, ASIC stated the conduct in question involved publishing false, misleading or deceptive statements in a \u201cClient Protection Policy\u201d (Protection Policy) between around 25 September 2015 and 30 March 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Protection Policy was provided to 19,402 clients with statements of advice by representatives of Dover and purported to be &#8216;designed to ensure that every Dover client get [sic] the best possible advice and the maximum protection available under the law\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In the judgment, his Honour Justice <strong>Michael O\u2019Bryan<\/strong> found that the title of the Protection Policy \u201cwas highly misleading and an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak. The document did not protect clients. To the contrary, it purported to strip clients of rights and consumer protections they enjoyed under the law\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Court found that the policy was false, misleading or deceptive in circumstances where:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It did not ensure that clients received the maximum protections available under the law<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It purported to remove or dilute the protections that clients would otherwise have had under the law<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It sought to prevent clients from making a claim against Dover and its authorised representatives on the basis that advice could not be understood<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It sought to exclude Dover\u2019s liability for most foreseeable breaches of the law by its authorised representatives<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It sought to limit or exclude Dover\u2019s liability to clients in a way that was inconsistent with the law<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Court found that Dover\u2019s sole director, <strong>Terrence McMaster<\/strong>, was, as a question of fact, knowingly concerned in that conduct, and was satisfied it was appropriate to make a declaration that McMaster had contravened section 12DB(1)(i) of the ASIC Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It also found, as a matter of fact, McMaster, also Key Person named on Dover\u2019s Australian Financial Services Licence and a Responsible Manager during the relevant period, was knowingly concerned in Dover\u2019s contraventions, having regard to concessions by McMaster, including that he was responsible for:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Determining and\/or approving the Protection Policy; and<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Requiring Dover\u2019s representatives to incorporate the Protection Policy with statements of advice provided to clients.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe law imposes important obligations on companies licenced to provide financial advice and for the protection of their clients.&#8221;<\/span><\/h6>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">ASIC Deputy Chair, <strong>Daniel Crennan QC<\/strong>, says, \u201cThe law imposes important obligations on companies licenced to provide financial advice and for the protection of their clients. Clients who receive financial advice should not be misled as to what those obligations are and what they mean for them and their interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His Honour rejected the defendants\u2019 primary submission that because ASIC had not sought to prove that any Dover client had suffered loss or damage by reason of the Protection Policy then the defendants had not engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct within the meaning of the ASIC Act.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In delivering his reasons for judgment, Justice O\u2019Bryan noted that there had been a contravention of the law each time the Protection Policy was sent to a client, being 19,402 times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Penalties will now be determined by the Court on a date yet to be fixed.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Court of Australia has found Dover Financial Advisers engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-compliance-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}