After more than a two year delay, judgment was handed down recently in a litigated claim against Carey Pensions, a SIPP provider, in Adams v Carey Pensions [HC-2017-000084]. In that case, after being introduced to Carey Pensions by an unregulated introduced, based in Spain, a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) was set up for Mr Adams and the majority of his pension savings were invested in a non-standard and objectively high risk investment in Storepods. That […]
Mis-sold pension investments: Dunas Beach and Llana Beach, Cape Verde
February 7th, 2020
Over the last decade many hundreds of UK pension savers have been persuaded to transfer safe, UK-regulated pension funds into unregulated, overseas investments which are now either worthless or extremely difficult to access. In this article we focus on The Resort Group investments in the Cape Verde islands. The Resort Group PLC, a Gibraltar registered company, offered investment opportunities in “stunning new developments”, including Llana Beach Hotel and Dunas Beach Resort, through a network of […]
Complaints or problems with transfer of benefits from a final salary or defined benefits scheme 2018
March 5th, 2018
Since our last news report on the mis-selling of SIPP pension investments in December 2017, there has been renewed and deepening criticism over the practices of pension and investment advice providers and their introducers. The spotlight is now placed on potentially unsuitable advice by IFA’s to defined benefit scheme members, on transfer of their pension savings out of these valuable schemes to much more risky investments. Transfers out of defined benefit schemes have grown in […]
Greater access for businesses to the Financial Ombudsman Service
February 19th, 2018
The current Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) Rules only allow businesses classed as “micro-enterprises” to participate in the FOS complaint redress scheme. At the end of January 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) opened a consultation on proposals that would extend access to the FOS to a much larger group of businesses. The FCA consultation identifies that “small businesses often have more in common with individual consumers”, and “small businesses that buy or use financial products […]
