Bad advice accountant banned

A GOLD Coast accountant who dished out bad advice and referred financial services work to her own company has been banned from the industry for three years and forced to contact former clients to tell them what she did.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said Jenan Oslem Thorne, who has also used the names Cenan Thorne and Cenan Dikmen, had also received self-managed superannuation referrals from banned financial services business Park Trent Properties Group.

The corporate regulator said Ms Thorne, of Saber Superannuation, had failed to act in the best interests of her clients and prioritised her own interests above theirs.

ASIC reviewed advice provided by Ms Thorne while they were investigating the Park Trent case, after that business was found to be operating unlicensed. ASIC said it reviewed advice provided by Ms Thorne when she was a representative of SMSF Advice, a wholly owned subsidiary of AMP, and found she had advised some clients to establish self-managed super funds (SMSFS) without taking their circumstances into account.

The regulator found the accountant hadn’t properly considered her clients’ existing superannuation arrangements or explored why they were interested in investing in direct residential property through an SMSF.

When recommending SMSFS to some of her clients, Ms Thorne had inappropriately scoped advice by excluding insurance and retirement planning.