The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) will re-determine the case of banned WA adviser Robert Hutchison, following a successful court appeal by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

The Federal Court ruled last week the AAT had interpreted the scope of the Corporations Act too narrowly when it cleared Mr Hutchison in 2018 of financial misconduct and set aside ASIC’s decision to permanently ban him from the industry.

ASIC had imposed the ban in 2017 after a probe it conducted found he had dishonestly deposited client cheques and was not of good fame or character.

But the AAT ruled his actions reflected lapses in judgement rather than character flaws and ASIC subsequently filed the court appeal against the tribunal’s decision.

Justice Katrina Frances Banks-Smith ruled AAT’s approach in the case “unnecessarily narrow” when it concluded that sections 1041G and 1041H of the Corporations Act did not apply to a broader context which does not impact the customer or investor.

“ASIC submits that the tribunal wrongly inserted words and imposed limitations on the interpretation of sections1041G and s 1041H in making its findings,” Justice Banks-Smith wrote in her ruling.

“Whilst there may be different ways to describe the error, in this case I prefer ASIC's submission that the tribunal failed to carry out its statutory task and on that basis jurisdictional error is disclosed.

“The appeal is allowed and the matter is to be remitted to the tribunal for determination according to law.”