ASIC Places 6yr Ban on Timothy Parry and Damian Price of NCFS

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) today announced that it has banned Timothy William Parry and Damian Garnet Price, director and officer of North Coast Financial Services Pty Ltd (NCFS), from controlling a financial services business or performing any function as an officer of an entity that carries on a financial services business for six years.

According to the regulator, Mr Parry and Mr Price breached their duties as director and officer respectively by failing to take sufficient steps to ensure that:

• they fulfilled their responsibilities by implementing effective supervision and monitoring arrangements at NCFS;

• a satisfactory due diligence process was undertaken when purchasing NCFS’s client book;

• NCFS complied with financial services laws; and

• NCFS and its representatives complied with the compliance manual of its licensee, Millennium 3 Financial Services Pty Ltd (Millennium 3), performed the obligations in Millennium 3’s compliance manual in a diligent and faithful manner, and complied with obligations under the law.

As detailed in the official announcement, NCFS has been an authorised representative of Millennium 3 since 5 February 2004 and is authorised to provide financial product advice and deal in financial products.

Mr Parry was sole director and secretary of NCFS between 4 September 2008 and 15 October 2020. Mr Price was an officer of NCFS at all relevant times. While they controlled the business, neither of them were financial advisers at NCFS.

On or around 28 May 2015, NCFS took on board new clients. ASIC found neither Mr Parry nor Mr Price took sufficient steps to identify the services NCFS was required to provide to these new clients, resulting in 58 clients being charged over $1500 each in fees for services that were not provided. 

Mr Price and Mr Parry each have the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decisions.