Inside the Dover judgement
Inside the Dover judgement
Terry McMaster and Dover Financial have been hit with hefty fines despite the Federal Court failing to find an instance in which their actions harmed consumers.
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“In my view, the Client Protection Policy had real potential to mislead consumers into believing that they had no legal recourse against Dover in respect of financial advice given to them when that was not the case,” Justice O’Bryan said in his judgement.
“Such an erroneous belief could have caused consumers very great loss. While the evidence shows that, in the period before the conduct was stopped by the intervention of ASIC, it was unlikely that consumers had suffered loss, the seriousness of the contravention must also be assessed by the loss that the conduct had the potential to occasion.”
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Dover Financial Advisers and Terry McMaster have been hit with hefty penalties in the case brought against them by ASIC. Justice O’Bryan of the Federal Court of Australia, Victorian registry, ord
“The contravention arose out of the conduct of the most senior management within Dover, being Mr McMaster.”
While not satisfied that McMaster was consciously aware the client protection policy contained a false or misleading statement, Justice O’Bryan observed that he had been aware of all the relevant facts making it so and that “McMaster’s behaviour following the institution of these proceedings indicates that he has only a limited appreciation of the seriousness of the contravening conduct and little if any contrition for the wrongdoing”.
Danielle Press, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioner, said the purpose of Dover’s client protection policy was to exclude or limit Dover’s liability to clients to its own financial benefit.
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