What happens when a financial services provider’s own handwriting expert says the client’s signatures are authentic, yet the provider still debars the adviser for forging them?
That question lay at the heart of a decision delivered on 27 February, in which the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) set aside the debarment of a Sanlam Developing Markets adviser and remitted the matter for reconsideration.
At issue was not simply whether the policies had been improperly issued, but whether the evidential foundation for debarment met the statutory threshold required under the fit-and-proper standards for honesty and integrity.
The adviser, employed by Sanlam from 1 March 2021, became the subject of a complaint in January 2024. A client alleged, in an affidavit, that four policies had been issued in his name without his knowledge or consent.
Sanlam’s forensic services division investigated. According to the Tribunal’s summary of the record, the forensic report concluded that the policies were fictitious and unauthorised, that personal information had been fabricated, and the client’s signatures had been forged.
The adviser resigned on 10 July 2024, and her employment was terminated on 6 August 2024.
Sanlam proceeded to issue a notice of intention to debar on 27 December 2024. Following a debarment inquiry, the adviser was debarred with effect from 3 October 2025 on the basis that she did not meet the honesty and integrity requirements under the FAIS framework.
The adviser applied to the Tribunal for reconsideration of the debarment.
She said the client signed a “corrective affidavit” on 12 February 2024 in which he retracted his earlier complaint, stating he made a “mistake” and was aware of the policies. The applicant claimed that Sanlam did not take the affidavit into consideration during the debarment inquiry.
In addition, she said Sanlam’s forensic report incorrectly linked her to a phone number she did not recognise, which, she argued, undermined the reliability of the entire investigation.
Sanlam said its forensic investigation proved the applicant knowingly submitted unauthorised and falsified policies and forged the client’s signatures. Sanlam contended the findings of the debarment committee were supported by system audit trails, forensic analysis, and signature verification, “all of which confirmed the applicant’s involvement in the falsified submissions”.
Sanlam argued the “corrective affidavit” lacked credibility compared with the documentary evidence and system audit trails.
Tribunal’s assessment
The Tribunal pointed out that the findings of Sanlam’s forensic investigation relied on a report by a handwriting expert.
The expert examined the client’s signatures on the four policies and compared them with the client’s signatures in his Identity Document and on the affidavit wherein he claimed that the policies were issued without his knowledge and consent.
The handwriting expert’s report expressly concluded that the disputed signatures were, “beyond any reasonable doubt”, those of the client. The expert’s findings that the signatures were authentic was at odds with Sanlam’s finding that they had been forged.
Turing to the “corrective affidavit” the Tribunal said the client stated that he took out three of the four policies, and he was “happy with them”. However, the client listed four other policies that he wanted to cancel because he “does not know about them”.
Sanlam responded that the applicant’s reliance on the “corrective affidavit” did not “outweigh the objective and contemporaneous documentary evidence of misconduct. The affidavit was found to lack credibility and failed to rebut the respondent’s findings.”
The Tribunal said Sanlam had summarily dismissed the affidavit without contacting the client to verify his statement.
The FST also noted that Sanlam admitted it had sent a text message intended for the adviser to the incorrect cellphone number. Sanlam said the error arose because the forensic investigator was working on two investigations simultaneously and inadvertently confused the two numbers.
The Tribunal said: “This admission, coupled with the investigator’s misreading of the handwriting expert report, suggests a significant breakdown in the accuracy and reliability of the forensic investigation. What is more astonishing is that Sanlam still maintains that the signatures on the policies were forged in circumstances where its own expert report states otherwise.”
The Tribunal concluded that the debarment decision was fundamentally flawed, given the material contradictions and the failure properly to investigate the client’s retraction. Based on the record before it, Sanlam had not established that the adviser lacked honesty and integrity.
The FST set aside the debarment and remitted the matter to Sanlam for fresh consideration, specifically directing the provider to address the handwriting expert’s conclusion that the signatures were authentic.
For financial services providers, the decision is a reminder that findings that result in debarment must rest on a coherent evidential foundation and procedurally fair handling of the evidence, including expert reports and client statements.
