Keydata’s former compliance officer banned by watchdog, but £200k fine dropped
The City watchdog has today banned the ex-compliance officer of Keydata Investment Services from performing any function related to regulated financial activities.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that Peter Johnson failed to act with integrity, and misled the Financial Services Authority (FSA) – the FCA's predecessor – on a number of occasions.
Johnson also would have been fined £200,000, although the FCA did not press ahead with this because of his financial hardship.
Keydata, which offered a variety of investment products to retail customers, was put into administration by the FSA in 2009 with £2.8bn of investment products under administration.
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In its decision notice for Johnson, the FCA remarked that it "considers that [his] failings…are of the most serious nature in light of the significant level of consumer detriment which has arisen from the sales of the products and the impact which this level of consumer detriment has had on the financial services sector".
The FCA also alleged that Johnson failed to act with integrity because he was aware that Keydata's financial promotions contained unclear, incorrect or misleading data, and had "recklessly failed to take adequate steps to prevent Keydata from continuing to market and sell [its] lifemark products as fulfilling the conditions set out in the Isa Regulations, when he was aware that it was highly likely that they did not do so".
Johnson was going to contest the FCA's decision but withdrew his referral of his case to the upper tribunal earlier this week. However, proceedings still continue for Keydata's former chief executive Stewart Ford and former sales director Mark Owen.
Ford and Owen are appealing fines of £75m and £4m respectively as well as bans to prevent them performing regulated activities.