The FCA has fined Philip Pryke nearly £1.4m and banned him for failings as a director, compliance officer and adviser at C&I, in relation to defined benefit pension scheme transfer advice during a 4 year period between 2015-2019. It found that he:
- failed, as an adviser, to comply with Statement of Principle 1, by being reckless and therefore failing to act with integrity because his personal recommendations did not meet regulatory requirements; and
- failed as a director and compliance officer, to comply with the same Principle because he failed to take any steps to ensure the firms’ processes were compliant, to keep adequate records and to allocate appropriate resource to the compliance function and compliance oversight role.
Over the period, pension transfer advice comprised a large percentage of the firm’s revenue, and its overall gross revenue from customers it advised to make transfers was over £8m.
As at September 2023, the FSCS had received claims from over 1,300 C&I customers and upheld over half of them. Were it not for the FSCS limit, t would have paid out around £67m.
The FCA also found that Mr Pryke had not been honest with it about another investigation by another organisation into his business affairs.