Claim lawyers, accountants getting unfair deal
Adviser Murray Weatherston said he could not see why lawyers, accountants and journalists writing advice columns were given special exemptions that meant they did not have the same obligations as financial advisers.
“They are doing exactly the same as any AFA does without being subject to the same rules and scrutiny of the FMA. Because they are exempt the FMA has no ability to go into their practices to check what people are doing.”
The FAA allows lawyers and accountants to offer financial advice when they are doing it as part of the ordinary course of business of that kind.
Weatherston said that meant it could be part of the lawyer or accountant’s core business, as long as it was their ordinary course of business. “My view is that they should be brought right square into the ambit of the Act.”
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