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Advice firm hammered with $11m penalty
Financial Standard
|May 05, 2025
Defunct advice firm Equiti Financial Services, since renamed DOD Bookkeeping, which has been placed into liquidation, has been slammed with an $11.03 million penalty for providing "cookie cutter" advice and breaching conflicted remuneration laws.
Equiti Financial Services paid $130,250 in bonuses to three financial advisers who provided template advice to clients to roll over their superannuation into self-managed super funds (SMSFs) and use those funds to purchase property through a related entity, Equiti Property.
The Federal Court found that advice to 12 clients was "cookie cutter" and failed to consider their individual circumstances or objectives. It also determined that the bonuses paid to the advisers, when clients settled on property offered through Equiti Property, distorted the advice they provided and breached conflicted remuneration laws.
This story is from the May 05, 2025 edition of Financial Standard.
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