The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has banned Mark Andrew Cooper from Seven Hills, Queensland, from providing any financial service for a period of seven-and-a-half years.
Mr Cooper has also been banned from controlling an entity carrying on a financial services business and from exercising any function involved in the conduct of a financial services business for seven and a half years.
Mr Cooper was the sole director of Acquire Strategic Advisers Pty Ltd between 27 August 2012 and 4 February 2020 and its Chief Financial Officer during January and February 2022.
In banning Mr Cooper, ASIC found that he had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to financial services.
ASIC also found Mr Cooper not fit and proper and not sufficiently trained or competent in relation to financial services when between January 2018 and January 2022 he caused or allowed Acquire to collect annual review fees from 240 self-managed super fund clients , when these annual reviews had not taken place.
It also caused or allowed Acquire to fail to have systems in place to ensure that customers received the annual customer reviews they had paid for. In addition, he failed to ensure that file notes of annual customer reviews were uploaded to a document management system within a reasonable time after the audit took place and therefore failed to maintain complete, accurate and reliable records.
Mr Cooper has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.