Prohibition prohibition prohibition

Last week, the FCA issued a prohibition order against independent financial advisor, Anthony George, finding that he was not a fit and proper person, as his conduct demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity. 

Mr George was the director, owner and sole approved person of a financial advisor and mortgage intermediary. The FCA found that Mr George had deliberately submitted false information to HMRC by understating the income in his self-assessment tax returns over a five year period. He did not declare to the accountancy firms which prepared and submitted his tax returns additional income he received from his other businesses or from a rental property. 

Mr George also instructed a separate accountancy firm to prepare an alternative version of his tax returns, which included all of his income for some of those tax years. He used those higher tax returns (some £360,000 higher) as the basis of a personal mortgage application, while using the lower tax returns to claim working tax credits.

Mr George further demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity when he concealed all this from the FCA, providing them with information which he knew to be false during a compelled interview.

He was therefore prohibited from performing any regulated activity in the financial services industry, in what we believe is one of the first cases where the FCA has penalised an individual for misconduct in relation to their personal tax affairs.   

This case also appears to be part of an uptick in prohibition orders by the FCA generally; there have been at least eight in the last few months.  Mr George's case, and that of Mr Frensham (see our earlier briefing here), also show that conduct not directly related to  their regulated actvities is increasingly on the FCA's radar.