The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC ) announced this Tuesday that it had banned Sean Philip Lewis, who was an authorized representative of Spectrum Wealth Advisers, from providing financial services for five years.
According to the statement from ASIC, the suspension of Lewis follows on from the regulator surveilling his advice while he was a representative of Spectrum. Specifically, the watchdog found that he failed to comply with financial services law.
This included failing to provide advice that was in the best interests of his clients and failing to provide advice that was appropriate for his clients’ objectives, ASIC said in its statement.
According to the Australian regulator, during its surveillance, ASIC found that Lewis advised most of his clients to use a Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangement (LRBA) to fund the purchase of real property through a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF). On top of this, he gave insurance advice to all clients, the watchdog claims.
“When providing this advice, Mr Lewis did not professionally and independently assess whether using an SMSF and borrowed funds to invest in property was an appropriate strategy for each of his clients. He also did not adequately investigate or offer any alternative investment strategies that may have provided greater diversification of risks,” ASIC said this Tuesday.
ASIC bans more members of Spectrum
Today’s announcement comes a few months after ASIC placed a six-year ban on Mark Schroeder, a former director of Spectrum Wealth Advisers Pty Ltd (Spectrum).
As Finance Magnates reported, the authority banned Schroeder from providing financial services for his role in numerous Compliance failures by Spectrum, of which he was a director, chief executive officer, responsible manager, and a key person for the company.
Schroeder was the most senior management of Spectrum and was responsible for the day-to-day management of the firm. As part of its surveillance, the watchdog found that he was involved in the company’s contraventions of financial services laws.
