Approach to Ethical Decision-Making Education

Overview

Lecture 2 outlined this unit’s approach to ethical decision-making education. This assignment is a research assignment that addresses the following three steps from that approach:

• Raise ethical issues through case studies
  • Develop and teach a process of reasoning —a decision model that can be used with the examples.
  • Develop moral imagination.

The goal of this assignment is for you, on an individual basis, to build your understanding of the Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019 (“the Code”). You will achieve this through critical enquiry of the ethical issues facing the industry and by applying the code to two case studies, like those you might face when sitting the FASEA exam.

Format & Presentation

You should ensure that your assignment is well-presented and as clear and concise as possible. There is no overall word limit, but if a word limit is stated on a particular question, then you MUST comply with that limit. Font size should be 12, with line-spacing of 1.5, and a minimum margin of 2.5cm on all sides. Round your answers to 2 decimal points.

Presentation that assists in conveying information to the reader in a manner that is easy to follow is appreciated. Ensure that you appropriately cross-reference your work, and if drawing on information from sources other than the unit materials (and I expect you will) you should ensure that you apply an appropriate referencing style consistently.

Research Question (20 Marks): ~1,000 Words Suggested Word Count

Background

A series of financial scandals led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in December 2017 (“Royal Commission”). The Commissioner, the Honourable Kenneth Madison Hayne AC QC, submitted his final report to the Governor-General on 1 February 2019.

Separately, the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) was established in April 2017 and the Financial Planners and Advisers Code of Ethics 2019 (“the Code”) was compulsory from 1 January 2019.

Research Question:

To what extent does the Code address issues raised in the Royal Commission? In answering this question, you should demonstrate the extent to which the Code could (or could not) have mitigated or prevented the unethical practices of the financial industry, especially those relevant to the financial planning industry.