ASIC has banned Mark Andrew Cooper of Seven Hills, Queensland, from providing any financial services for a duration of seven and a half years.

In addition to this, Mr. Cooper is prohibited from controlling entities engaged in financial services business, and from performing functions related to the operation of a financial services business for the same period.

Mr. Cooper served as the sole director of Acquire Strategic Advisers Pty Ltd from August 27, 2012, to February 4, 2020, and as its Chief Financial Officer during January and February 2022.

ASIC's decision to ban Mr. Cooper stemmed from findings that he engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct concerning financial services. Specifically, between January 2018 and January 2022, ASIC determined that Mr. Cooper:

• Caused or permitted Acquire to collect annual review fees from 240 client Self-managed super funds without conducting the required annual reviews.

• Either caused or allowed Acquire to neglect systems that would to ensure clients received the annual client reviews they had paid for.

• Failed to ensure timely uploading of file notes from annual client reviews to a document management system, resulting in incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable records maintenance.

Mr. Cooper's ban has been documented on ASIC's Banned and Disqualified Register.

He retains the right to appeal ASIC's decision to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

This information comes from the official ASIC media release on the 21st of December 2023 and is true at the time of publishing. To read ASICs media release click here