News Round Up

Successful prosecution of unit trust manager, FPIA supports government moves.

Monday, July 28th 2003, 7:13AM

A former manager of the collapsed forestry investment Flat Rocks Forest Trust has been found guilty on three fraud charges.

The case, which was recently heard in the Auckland District Court, is beleived to be the country's first successful prosecution of a unit trust manager, the NZ Herald reports. Donald Hugh Simcock pleaded not guilty to five charges of abusing his position as an officer of the manager of Flat Rocks. He was found not guilty on two charges. Judge Nicola Mathers said on those two charges "that it was a close-run thing", the Herald reports.

FPIA welcomes Govt announcement
The Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association (FPIA) welcomes the Government's moves to open dialogue about possible options for adviser regulation.

Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association chief executive Phillip Matthews said that it was good to see the Government wanted to take a softly, softly approach, rather than a heavy handed one on the issue of regulation.

"It's nice to see that they are looking first at a light handed approach as opposed to a heavy handed approach which is used in other developed countries.

Associater finance minister David Cunliffe told the association's annual conference in Rotorua last week that the Government will collapse the two-tiered disclosure regime into one, and expanding the coverage to include a larger part of the investment adviser community, including bank officers.

"The initiatives on disclosure are welcomed and largely mirror the recommendations the association made in its submission to the Securities Commission in November 2001," Matthews says.

Under the new proposals the Securities Commission will have the power to prohibit or ban advisers.

Matthews says this change is positive as the greatest weakness of the law previously was that there was no enforcement mechanism.

"This change will give greater confidence to the public that the changes are not cosmetic."

Matthews also welcome the Government's invitation to work in partnership with the industry to help build consumer confidence in the advisory industry.

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