On the website of MAS, they have a page for reporting their enforcement actions.

There’s a long list of enforcement actions reported on 24th August 2010.

Five were against financial adviser’s representatives of DBS for giving inappropriate advice with regards to the selling of the DBS High Notes.

MAS had deemed four of their performance to be “unsatisfactory” and would have issued orders to prohibit them from providing financial advisory services for six months to a year had they continued to be in the industry. No such orders were required as they had already left the industry.

However, one former financial adviser’s representative of DBS was given the prohibition order.

Another two representatives, one from Phillip Securities and another from Kim Eng Securities, were given specific prohibition orders from dealing with structured notes for a year. One of them had prepared and emailed inaccurate and misleading writeups on Lehman Brothers related structured notes to all of the company’s representatives.

These prohibition orders would be of little comfort to those investors who had lost money from buying the structured notes under wrong advice.

MAS Quote:

Licensees and representatives must pay substantive and proper consideration to the complexity of investment products and their clients’ background and needs when providing financial advisory service. Without clear evidence that clients understand an investment product, licensees and representatives should not recommend the product, particularly if it is of relatively higher complexity. Licensees and representatives should also not recommend investment products when it is apparent from a client’s circumstances that the client would not understand such products.