After failing to lodge an annual compliance certificate when requested, South Australian director of Gryphon Financial Alexander Dryden w...
After failing to lodge an annual compliance certificate when requested, South Australian director of Gryphon Financial Alexander Dryden was banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for six months.
Mr Dryden spoke to The Adviser, saying that he complied with the requests of the financial authority and received his compliance certificate in August.
“Before ASIC came in for the review, I made sure all our compliance and paperwork was up to date," Mr Dryden said.
“I told ASIC prior to them coming in that I would hold back my compliance certificate submission until such time that the review was over because I wanted to ensure my processes were compliant. I didn’t want to put in my compliance for the previous year if I had problems.”
“They only picked up one area of concern in my mandate, which I’d been using for many years; I had a clause in there that I could put a caveat on the property. I’ve never ever put a caveat on a property, and the moment they said I couldn’t have that there, I immediately removed it,” he added.
“It was ignorance on my part and I completely accept that. But I’ve done all my training, and during that they said ‘abide by the regulation’, and there is no mention of caveats in the regulation at all – it’s in the act.”
According to Mr Dryden, in early 2013 he informed ASIC he was waiting for the outcome of their review before proceeding with lodging his compliance certificate. Mr Dryden said he had to wait for an additional five months after the given deadline to receive any information of his certificate.
“Even though it was removed, never acted on, and it was an honest mistake of mine, I had no recourse. I can understand their position on the caveat because I was naïve, but I’m disappointed that I got a six-month suspension for lack of compliance – that surprised me,” he said.
Broker and CEO of More Group Aaron Upcroft also commented on the incident, saying the case shows the importance of legal advice.
“It does appear that ASIC have tried to make a bit of a statement in this case. From a broker's perspective, I definitely feel for the guy, but from a lawyer's perspective, this goes to show how important legal advice is," he said.
Just recently ASIC banned a broker for fraudulently compiling a company bank account from liquidators. On October 1st NSW broker David Barrett pleaded guilty and was banned from managing a corporation for five years.
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