Mr Joshua David Fuoco of Prahran, Victoria has been banned from providing financial services for five years by ASIC.

This follows an investigation by ASIC into the Dollarforce Group of companies, in particular Elite Equities Limited (Elite) and Mr Fuoco. Between 23 February 2005 and 11 November 2008, Mr Fuoco was an authorised representative of Elite, a financial planning business associated with the Dollarforce Group.

ASIC’s investigation found that between July 2005 and September 2007, Mr Fuoco recommended various financial products offered by companies in the Dollarforce Group to clients of Elite. In some cases Mr Fuoco did not have a reasonable basis for the advice he gave and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. Mr Fuoco also provided clients with defective disclosure documents which failed to disclose details of his and Elite’s remuneration and various interests and associations that may have affected the advice he gave.

In summary, ASIC found that Mr Fuoco did not comply with financial services laws by:

• Recommending interests in unregistered managed investments schemes when it would have been apparent to Mr Fuoco that these schemes required registration;
• Failing to have a reasonable basis for advice he provided to retail clients of Elite;
• Failing to disclose in statements of advice he provided to clients:
  • information about remuneration (including commissions or other benefits) payable to Mr Fuoco, namely bonuses which might reasonably be expected to be capable of influencing the advice provided by Mr Fuoco; and
  • this information in dollar terms.
• Failing to disclose in statements of advice he provided to clients information about certain interests of his and his associates, and relationships he or his associates had with product issuers which might reasonably be expected to be capable of influencing the advice provided by Mr Fuoco.

As such, Mr Fuoco engaged in conduct that was likely to mislead his clients. Mr Fuoco has the right to lodge an application for review of ASIC’s decision with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Source: ASIC Media Release