FPA tried to protect celebrity planner Sam Henderson's reputation

It also said publishing his name would undermine the FPA’s conduct review commission process and damage its reputation with other members.

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The hearing also heard the FPA went against the recommendation of its own “damning” investigation when it sought a negotiated outcome over a complaint against the celebrity planner, including terms that would have kept the planner’s identify confidential.

Ms Orr described the FPA’s investigation into Mr Henderson’s conduct as “quite damning,” and FPA chief executive Dante De Gori agreed with the description.

Ms Orr read from the investigator’s report, which concluded the alleged breaches by Mr Henderson were not suited to “summary disposal,” a way for the FPA to reach a negotiated outcome with a member adviser.

“In all of the circumstances, there is a strong and reasonable inference that the member’s conduct stemmed from a lack of objectivity or a conscious decision to place his own interests before those of the client when the client trusted otherwise,” Ms Orr quoted the report as saying.

“It is not apparent that the member would not have made the same recommendations if not for his conflicts,” she said.

Despite this recommendation, the FPA has been trying to deal with the complaint under a process known as “summary disposal,” which requires the adviser to agree to the breaches they have made, and the sanctions they will face.

By February this year, the FPA had agreed on proposed terms for the summary disposal of the complaint against Mr Henderson.

Under these proposed terms, Mr Henderson would be admonished for breaching the FPA code of practice, he would be required to pay outstanding fees he owed the FPA, and he would have to make various commitments on staff training, compliant practices, and the commissioning of independent reviews.

Ms Orr also said the FPA had offered to not to reveal in public the identify of Mr Henderson – who had a range of media commitments including as regular host on Sky News Business and as a commentator at this website’s publisher, Fairfax Media.

The proposed terms were ultimately rejected by the FPA’s conduct review commission last month, and the complaint has not yet been resolved. Mr De Gori said resolution of the complaint against Mr Henderson was “imminent”.

The commission is looking into the disciplinary regime for financial planning, and Ms Orr questioned Mr De Gori over the FPA’s willingness to keep secret the names of advisers facing sanctions.

Mr De Gori defended the practice and said the FPA’s ability to reveal a member’s identify was its strongest mechanism to ensure members complied with the sanctions.

“It is our biggest leverage in terms of impacting on conduct,” Mr De Gori said.

Expulsion from the FPA does not stop a planner from providing financial advice to the public.

The FPA is one of two key professional bodies in the financial planning sector, and Ms Orr said that of 18 instances where it had imposed sanctions against advisers, the adviser’s name was not published in seven of those cases. In one case, it did not publish the name of an adviser who had faced the most serious sanction – explusion from the FPA.