CORPORATE & PROFESSIONAL PENSIONS WESTERBY
On 1 February 2022 Corporate & Professional Pensions (C&PP) (FRN) 465748 entered administration due to its inability to meet compensation liabilities arising from upheld complaints by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) concerning inadequate due diligence on certain pension investments. The company’s directors put C&PP into administration as a result of the numerous complaints that were upheld against it by the FOS.
Subsequently, on 17 March 2022, Westerby Trustee Services Limited, an established provider of trusteeship and administration services for SIPPs and Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSASs), acquired C&PP’s business and certain assets, including the transfer of SIPP and SSAS clients.
Risky Investments
The company was forced to pay three of its clients financial compensation for the investments made in the agroforestry programme being run by Sustainable AgroEnergy, these investments were unregulated and high risk therefore not suitable for most of their clients. However, it was argued by C&PP that Citadel Trustees had sent them a due diligence report with regards to this investment.
After further investigation it was found by the FOS that although Citadel Trustees were regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the report it produced looked like it had been instructed by Sustainable AgroEnergy and was given to C&PP by them. This meant that it wasn’t exactly clear if any due diligence had actually been done by the SIPP provider.
The company was also guilty of accepting investment instructions and introductions from various introducers that weren’t regulated. Altogether, C&PP was guilty of accepting 185 different introductions from a single group of companies that were all unregulated. It was therefore concluded by the FOS that the due diligence process was innadequate, thus leaving the company’s clients open to the possibility of financial loss.
Some of the companies involved include:
- Portwood Financial Services Limited – this unregulated company also traded under the name otheroptions.co.uk. It was stated by C&PP that it wasn’t aware that Portwood had dealings with Liquid Financial Ltd because there wasn’t actually a company registered under that name at the time.
- S J Stone Limited – Mr Stone was the director of the unregulated company known as S J Stone Limited. When first contact was made with this company C&PP was well aware of the reputation of the director and that he was responsible for introducing his clients to SIPPs. During their meetings together, Mr Stone told the company that he planned to seek advisory permissions off of the FCA so that he could begin introducing his clients as a regulated advisor to SIPP operators. Following an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, Mr Stone was prosecuted and charged with numerous offences that all related to bribery and fraud. He was given a custodial sentence.
- Highpoint Trustees / Citadel Trustees – the company was regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority all the way up to 2020. However it was hard to determine whether or not the trustees had correctly performed the required due diligence with respect to the non-standard investments that the company acted as either escrow agent or trustee for. The company was involved in a range of different investments, including Eco Synergies Limited, Global Forestry Investments, Forest Lakes, Merco Bonds, Eco Plant Bamboo, and Sustainable AgroEnergy Plc.
- Protea Wealth Management – this unregulated business was set up in 2010 and then ceased trading in 2014. Mr Stone was a co-director of the company. C&PP was of the understanding that Protea had applied to the Financial Conduct Authority for authorisation as Mr Stone supplied the company with a reference number of the application that had been made.
Unsuitable Advice
Anyone who had involvement with any of these companies and has either invested money or transferred their pension as a result of the unsuitable advice they gave should call us now. The same applies to any clients who were given incorrect and unrealistic pension statements.
Next Steps
Call us now for a phone or video consultation with one of our legal experts on 0800 041 8358 to find out if you are entitled to compensation, you may even be entitled to additional compensation if you have successfully claimed in the past.
