The Financial Services and Credit Panel (FSCP) has cancelled financial adviser Evan James Byrnes’ registration and prohibited him from being registered as a relevant provider for two and a half years.

The prohibition takes effect on 23 October 2026 and prevents Mr Byrnes from being registered with ASIC until after 23 April 2029.

During this period, he must not provide personal advice to retail clients in relation to relevant financial products.

The Sitting Panel reasonably believed that Mr Byrnes contravened s921E(3) of the Corporations Act 2001 by failing to comply with the Code of Ethics’ values of trustworthiness, competence, honesty and diligence, and Standards 1, 2, 4, 7, 8 and 12.

In reaching this view, the Sitting Panel found that, over a number of years, Mr Byrnes failed to maintain adequate records of client annual reviews, charged ongoing financial advice fees and did not provide some clients with the services for which those fees were charged.

The Sitting Panel also found that Mr Byrnes was unresponsive to requests from his licensee during audits and investigations into his client annual review arrangements.

The Sitting Panel considered Mr Byrnes’ record-keeping failures and lack of cooperation with his licensee to be serious, protracted and inconsistent with the standards expected of a relevant provider.

Background

• The FSCP is a pool of industry participants, appointed by the Minister, that ASIC draws upon when forming individual sitting panels. The FSCP makes administrative decisions on matters referred to it by ASIC that relate to the conduct of financial advisers. Each sitting panel comprises an ASIC staff member and at least two members of the FSCP.
• The FSCP has the power to make a registration prohibition order under s921L(1)(c) of the Corporations Act.
• The FSCP’s decision has been published on the FSCP Outcomes Register on the ASIC website.