A life insurance adviser has successfully appealed against a three-year ban imposed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Atish Prasad applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) for a reduction in the ban. It has now been cut to 18 months, and ends on October 26.   

Before the ban in April last year, Mr Prasad was an authorised representative of Lionsgate Financial Group.

According to the AAT decision, he provided life insurance advice to four clients, supporting his recommendations with a statement of advice (SOA), except in one case.

ASIC argued it banned Mr Prasad because he failed to provide an SOA within the prescribed timeframe, did not include enough detail in the documents and had not been trained adequately to provide financial services.

In his judgement, AAT Deputy President Robert Deutsch found Mr Prasad had “poorly completed, if completed at all” the SOAs.

But he said Mr Prasad acted in clients’ best interests, although he had not followed the requirements outlined in legislation.

“I do accept this case is one involving a high degree of carelessness rather than dishonesty or deliberate deception,” Professor Deutsch said. “That is an important factor that clearly suggests a banning order of shorter duration than three years is appropriate.

“A lesser ban of 18 months is, in my view, the appropriate duration for such a ban, having regard especially to the fact Mr Prasad was not acting dishonestly at any relevant time, made no personal gain from the identified deficiencies, and the clients in question incurred no financial detriment as a result of the identified deficiencies.”