Tag: Paul Feeney

  • Paul Feeney of Quilter and the Marshmallow Regulator

    Paul Feeney of Quilter and the Marshmallow Regulator

    One of my all-time favourite comedy lines is Greg Davies describing his middle-aged love life as “like trying to stuff a marshmallow up a cat’s arse”. My second-favourite comedy line is “Andrew Bailey has been such a failure at the FCA, that we’re going to put him in charge of the Bank of England”. My third favourite is “the FCA’s practitioner panel is going to be headed up by Paul Feeney of Quilter”.

    Nothing funny about the FCA's failures or Quilter's destruction of pensions.

    With the exception of Greg Davies’ somewhat risqué pun, the other two are both true and sickeningly serious.

    Victims of the FCA’s multiple failures to take action (despite urgent warnings by courageous whistleblowers) will be horrified at Bailey’s elevation to the “top job” as his reward for betraying so many thousands of investors.

    Victims of Quilter (previously Old Mutual International and Skandia) will be appalled that such a pariah of financial services can be held up to be an example to financial services practitioners.

    It might, of course, be that I am mistaken – and that Feeney is being brought in as an example of how financial services should NOT be run, and how financial advice should NOT be provided.

    But, sadly, I think the “old boys’ network” has worked its magic and the FCA elite have closed ranks with Quilter’s elite, to dominate control over pension and investment scams. It is clear that neither the so-called “City Watchdog” nor the insurance giant – specialising in pointless insurance bonds and toxic investments – want to see financial services cleaned up.

    If any financial services consumer is unclear about the FCA’s multiple failures in the matter of the collapsed London Capital & Finance “bond”, they only need to read Bond Review’s piece on the Dame Gloster report. Along with “The FCA told potential investors that LCF was not a fraud, and FSCS protected“, “the FCA took no follow-up action to verify that all LCF’s investors qualified as high-net-worth and sophisticated” and “The FCA consistently treated LCF’s unregulated bonds as not its problem“, Dame Gloster pulls no punches when she outlines the FCA’s many disgraceful and negligent failures.

    From Andrew Bailey at the top, to the members of FCA staff who defecated on the men’s bathroom floor at the bottom, Dame Gloster’s report demonstrates that the FCA simply doesn’t understand pension and investment scams. Apparently, an FCA supervisor had admitted that “there is little training on how to identify financial crime within the FCA’s Supervision division”.

    Put simply, if the FCA can’t keep its own bathrooms clean, how on earth can it help clean up the crap in the world of financial fraud?

    The FCA clearly does not understand that unregulated, high-risk, toxic investments are simply not suitable for ordinary retail investors. And this is why the appointment of Quilter’s Paul Feeney is so anomalous: Quilter has for years specialised in peddling these kinds of high-risk investments to low-risk investors. The graveyards of thousands of Quilter victims’ investment portfolios is littered with the rotting remains of many funds and structured notes.

    A regulator’s “Practitioner’s Panel” should ideally be headed up by someone who understands how financial services firms should be run; someone who eschews the fraudulent and disloyal practices of the “cowboys” and “chiringuitos”; someone who has shown the will to outlaw illegally-sold insurance bonds whose sole purpose is to make thousands of victims poor and dozens of scammers rich.

    Instead, the FCA’s panel is going to be under the control of someone who has actively promoted high-risk investments to low-risk investors.

    So, it would seem there is no hope that the FCA will ever be reformed – just as there is no hope that the top dogs at Quilter will ever brought to justice for facilitating so much financial crime. The two rogue organisations are going to jog along cosily, side by side, with no remorse for their own failures and culpability.

    It is hard for pension and investment scam victims to comprehend the apathy towards reform of regulation in the UK. Experts such as Henry Tapper, Mick McAteer, Martin Hague, Paul Carlier and Gina Miller have long banged the “reform” drum. But this has largely fallen on deaf ears. And, of course, Dame Gloster’s report will be largely ignored.

    This is all cronyism at its worst. And shows that neither the Treasury nor Parliament truly understand what is so very wrong with financial services in the UK (and also offshore). Select Committees, such as the Work and Pensions one chaired by Stephen Timms, can debate all day long – but until the FCA is scrapped and rogue “wealth” and “life” (in reality, poverty and death) companies like Quilter are shut down, nothing will change.

    Dame Gloster has written about the “wickedness” of the FCA’s failures to protect the public (from investment scams such as London Capital & Finance). Part of this evil is the failure to recognise the dangers of unlicensed scammers – the motley assortment of unlicensed “introducers” – both onshore and offshore. But, of course, this is what Quilter’s business is based on – so the appointment of Quilter’s Paul Feeney will only protect and nurture this branch of financial crime.

    Quilter has for many years given terms of business to assorted scammers, prostitutes, murderers, fraudsters and conmen (and women). With the acceptance of thousands of investment instructions from these unruly hordes of low-life, unlicensed, unqualified criminals, Quilter has built up a successful and profitable business based on ruining innocent victims’ lives (and killing some of them in the process).

    Dame Gloster’s excellent, comprehensive and severely damning report provides almost 500 pages of details of the FCA’s disgraceful failings.

    But if you haven’t got time to read it, just read FT Adviser’s one-page article on “Quilter boss Feeney to head up FCA panel”. Then zoom down to the bit that says: “Paul has served on the panel for a number of years and appreciates the important role it plays in ensuring our regulation is targeted and effective.”

    Then go and have a good cry. And a packet of marshmallows.

  • Quilter: Critical or Hypocritical?

    Quilter: Critical or Hypocritical?

    • Fraud Alert
    • Quilter Logo

    Recent data obtained by Quilter (formerly Old Mutual International and Royal Skandia) under a freedom of information request has further highlighted the issue of financial education, or rather the lack of it, with many casualties of fraud ‘unaware they may have fallen victim‘ to such a scheme.

    Quilter plc (the well-known asset/wealth management company, “life office”, and old friends of ours) has recently acquired figures clearly showing an absence of any kind of appropriate action from the ironically-named Action Fraud organisation. This data demonstrates that despite 400 pension fraud reports having been submitted to the inept crime-reporting centre in 2019 alone, as few as 26 of these cases were passed on to the police to investigate – representing just 6.6% of the total cases they handled.

    YearPension fraud reports received by Action FraudPension fraud reports reviewed by NFIBPension fraud reports disseminated to the police and other agencies
    20151353208208
    20165479797
    20174096262
    20183464638
    20193944626
    Up to July 2020161*N/K** 24*
    Christopher Copper-Ind @intlinvestment
    14 September 2020

    *Figures omit February 2020 bulk upload of retrospective reports to avoid misrepresenting case volumes in 2020.

    ** Figure not disclosed in the FOI response

    These same figures show that this year (as of July 2020), of the 161 pension fraud reports that were received by Action Fraud, only 24 have been disseminated to the relevant police force for investigation after the information was reviewed by NFIB (the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau). While this may represent a slight statistical improvement on previous years, this is neither good enough nor in any way acceptable – both for the victims of financial fraud, and the honest, decent, hardworking IFA’s out there who have seen the reputation of their profession suffer greatly at the hands of fraudsters and scammers alike.

    The time has come to call out the thieves in their midst!

    Scams, and the lack of an active regulator in place to ensure their non-proliferation, undermine the reputation of the industry itself – and of any decent advisers out there.

    The supposed altruism behind the actions of Quilter, who have seen the story of their plucky attempt at standing up for the little guy circulated by almost every major financial publication available in the UK, and by a fair few online and overseas English-language webpages/articles besides, is questionable at the very best – and a downright attempt at pulling the famous ‘Kansas City Shuffle‘ (when everybody looks right, you go left) at worst. I would like to use this opportunity to call “bull-“, as I believe I have heard my American friends say when faced with a claim that is clearly one of the more than 50 shades of bovine excrement currently available from all major stockers of the substance.

    Quilter has, in the past ten years, facilitated hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of pension scams with their “fertilizer”-based products.

    Previously operating under the name Old Mutual International, OMI or Old Mutual for short, Quilter has helped the serial scammers behind all kinds of financial skullduggery get away with murder (or should I say fraud, to be more specific) under the – cough – “watchful” gaze of their CEO Paul Feeney, and Peter Kenny (another old friend of this publication).

    It seems that almost every shady offshore firm has been taking advantage of Quilter and other life offices just like them being asleep at the wheel, with hordes of unlicensed investment firms popping up with increasing frequency and success in virtually every expat jurisdiction (especially Spain: e.g. Darren Kirby and Jody Smart at Continental Wealth Management).

    Quilter are (at least partially) to blame. The well-known asset management company’s lack of responsibility when it comes to selling inappropriate products to any suitor who comes a-calling is – at this point – bordering on criminal negligence. (And that’s if you remove the border…)

    Quilter are fully aware that the statistics they’ve obtained (£30,857,329 lost to UK pension scams since 2017) are downright misleading. They fall woefully short of demonstrating even the losses incurred by their own (Quilter’s) facilitation of financial crime in recent years generally – and the last three years particularly.

    ‘Tip of the Iceberg‘ indeed! Even the Titanic was given some sign of the peril hidden in the depths of the Atlantic as it hurtled to its certain and untimely demise!

    Yet when it comes to financial fraud and investment scams (particularly those that involve unsuspecting clients’ pension pots), there is almost no pre-emptive warning given to the public, except for massively underestimated figures produced by the very people who have been clearing the way for the scammers from day one. And by that, I do – of course – mean the life offices (like Quilter/OMI) themselves.

    I would like to take this opportunity to quote Jon Greer, who is the Head of Retirement Policy at Quilter. Mr Greer said: “We are entering a period of considerable economic uncertainty, and one in which generating a decent return on your investments will be extremely challenging. This is the ideal environment for scammers to thrive and it is no surprise to see huge amounts of money still being lost each year at the hands of criminals.

    The fact that it is so hard to investigate and prosecute pension scams is effectively handing pension scammers a get out of jail free card. If you are mugged, it’s highly likely that the police will investigate, but lose your life savings to a pension scammer and your odds don’t look good.

    – Jon Greer, Head of Retirement Policy @ Quilter

    “Pension scams and other investment frauds are extremely complex, they can span multiple jurisdictions, and can often go uncovered for years before the victim realises their money is gone. This all makes investigating the scams incredibly time-consuming and expensive, which is why the police have to prioritise those few cases where they have a chance of success.

    “The government have taken action on unsolicited pension calls with the ban on cold calling, but scammers are sidestepping the legislation and moving online. Movement on the regulation of search engines and social media platforms has been painfully slow and the regulation has failed to keep up with the evolution of scammers.

    “The government has a perfect opportunity to bring the regulation into the 21st century by including financial harms within scope of the forthcoming Online Harms Bill. This will mean that, for the first time, search engines and social media platforms will be bound by a statutory duty of care to tackle harm caused as a result of content or activity on their services.”

    “In doing so, search engines and social media providers will be legally required to remove suspected scammers immediately on notification, and not allow them to operate in the first place, or face sanctions from the new regulator,” he said.

    As you can see Mr. Greer, and by association Quilter, talk a good fight and hit on almost every relevant point a consumer would want to hear from a company of their standing and stature within the financial industry; projecting themselves as a shining light – pouring their beacon out over the surrounding landscape and frightening any existing/would-be scammers out from their hiding places, while at the same time calling on the government for harsher penalties and swifter action to be taken (measures which Quilter themselves, and companies just like them, have blocked on numerous occasions).

    And all this “bright light-shining” has served its purpose: leaving regulators, government and public alike too dazzled to notice the wrongdoing going on behind the source of the so-called light and within Quilter‘s very own doorstep!”

    The narrative that Quilter/Old Mutual/OMI would have you believe is a ridiculous one, one of the main reasons I have written this piece is to challenge that narrative; and hopefully make you (the reader) think about a company that damns financial fraudsters and scammers alike with one hand, while secretly feeding them with the other.

    The grim reality is substantially different from the one that Quilter aim to project for themselves. That being said, it makes my reply to J. Greer’s well put comments even easier:

    “Actions speak louder than words, and all we’re hearing is a deafening silence. If you truly believe the message your company has spent tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds to tell us – by buying article space from any major financial publication that would have you, and getting them to run the story you wanted to put out there.

    It’s time to put your money where your mouth is, quite literally; and begin funding the financial education sorely needed in schools and workplaces throughout the country that will serve to prevent the kind of investment-based crime you claim to stand against!

    “Oh and maybe, just maybe, improve upon your company’s policies so that you do not sell the very products that facilitate thieves who have stolen hundreds of millions of pounds by misselling those same products in just the last few years, whilst simultaneously trying to absolve yourselves of any blame.

    “To put it simply: don’t take your definition of “action” from Action Fraud…”

    RELATED ARTICLES

    Fraudstermind: Jody Smart

  • No more bogus life assurance policies in Spain

    No more bogus life assurance policies in Spain

    The Spanish Insurance Regulator – the DGS (Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones) – has made a most welcome judgment.  This outlaws the mis-selling of bogus life assurance policies as investment “platforms” – aka “life bonds”.  Read the translated summary below.

    The iniquitous practice of scamming victims into these expensive, pointless bonds – so beloved by the “chiringuitos” (scammers) on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol for many years – will now result in criminal convictions for the peddlers of these toxic products.

    The DGS’ judgment has provided reinforcement to the earlier Spanish Supreme Court’s ruling that life assurance contracts used to hold “single-premium” investments are invalid.  This heralds a huge step forward in cleaning up the filthy scams which have for so long proliferated in popular British expat communities – making the victims poor and the perpetrators rich.  This evil practice came to a head when scammers Continental Wealth Management collapsed in a pile of debris in September 2017.  The main perps: Darren Kirby, Dean Stogsdill, Anthony Downs, Richard Peasley, Alan Gorringe, Neil Hathaway, Antony Poole all ran for the hills.  Other scammers who played supporting roles – including Stephen Ward, Martyn Ryan and Paul Clarke – slithered away quietly to ply their scams elsewhere.

    The DGS ruling has opened the way for criminal prosecutions against all those at Continental Wealth Management who profited so handsomely from flogging “life bonds” by Old Mutual International (aka OMI and Royal Skandia), Generali and SEB.  While it goes without saying there will be a hearty cheer about the jailing of Darren Kirby and his merry men, they will soon be joined by other individuals who have joined in the bogus life insurance fest just as enthusiastically.  And, of course, the life offices – from OMI, Generali and SEB, to Friends Provident and RL360 – will be treated to a proceeds-of-crime party.

    Guest of honour will, of course, be Peter Kenny of OMI.  But just to make sure nobody feels left out, Hansard and Investors Trust will certainly get their invites.  Maybe Wormwood Scrubs will set up their own wing for life-office scammers.

    It has long seemed curious that such a delightful part of Spain as the Costa Blanca should have fostered such an evil industry.  From the arch scammer himself – Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions, and his many associates including Paul Clarke who was helping him flog Ark before he joined CWM to learn to scam on a much larger scale.  But anywhere along that delightful stretch of coastline running from Valencia to Alicante there are dozens of firms giving the life bond machine plenty of welly.

    So popular is the use of life bonds among the seedier sector of the financial services industry, that multi-national firm Blevins Franks have their own their “exclusive” offering of bogus Lombard bonds.  And you can see why: these scammers earn 8% from flogging these bogus life assurance policies.  That’s 8% for doing nothing – and for trapping their victims into paying back this commission over up to ten years.  Often long after the victims have worked out that the bond serves no purpose except to prevent the funds from ever growing.

    The victims themselves – hundreds of which lost most (or in some cases all) of their life savings to Continental Wealth Management – will indeed see the DGS’ ruling as wonderful news.  They will certainly celebrate the fact that justice has at last prevailed and that the law in Spain has made it clear that selling life assurance policies the traditional scamming way is illegal.

    Continental Wealth Management (CWM – “sister company” to Stephen Ward’s Premier Pension Solutions) was set up initially to provide the cold calling and lead generation services to support Ward’s many scams – including the Evergreen (New Zealand) QROPS scam.  Evergreen was swiftly followed by the Capita Oak and Westminster scams (now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office).  Unregulated, and staffed by unqualified salesmen who took it in turns to sport grand titles such as “Managing Director” and “Investment Director”, most of these spivs had been car salesmen or estate agents before flogging QROPS and life assurance contracts used to hold the toxic structured notes which destroyed so many millions of pounds’ worth of the victims’ life savings.  Many of these bonds were supplied by Old Mutual International, who despite the huge losses on the funds, continued to take their fees monthly.

    Back in April 2018, OMI and the IOM were defeated by Spanish courts ruling that the jurisdiction in litigation against them for facilitating financial crime should be in Spain. This was a welcomed victory for the victims in the face of so much corruption and fraud in Spain for many years. It is certainly a turning point in the quest for justice by the thousands of victims of scammers such as Continental Wealth Management and life offices such as Old Mutual International, Generali and SEB.

    I will be writing to all advisory firms who are selling life bonds to victims in Spain to advise them that this is now a criminal matter and to warn them that they will be reported to the DGS.

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    Madrid, 10 January 2019

    General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds (DGS)

    Complaints service file number 268/2016

     

    COMPLAINT BY A CONTINENTAL WEALTH CLIENT IN RESPECT OF HEAVY LOSSES INCURRED ON HIS PENSION TRANSFERRED TO A BOURSE QROPS AND PLACED IN A GENERALI INSURANCE BOND.

    The Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds is competent under the powers conferred on it by Article 46 of Law 26/2006 of 17 July, on the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, to examine the claim formulated for the purpose of determining non-compliance with current regulations on the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, and whether this is decisive for the adoption of any of the relevant administrative control measures, particularly those of administrative sanction, which contravene the aforementioned Law.

    Article 6 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which regulates the general obligations of insurance intermediaries, states:

    “Insurance intermediaries shall provide truthful and sufficient information in the promotion, supply and underwriting of insurance contracts, and, in general, in all their advisory activity….”

    Article 26 paragraphs 2 and 3 of Law 26/2006, of 17 July, on private insurance and reinsurance mediation, which refers to insurance brokers, establishes the following:

    “Insurance brokers must inform the person who tries to take out the insurance about the conditions of the contract which, in their opinion, it is appropriate to take out and offer the cover which, according to their professional criteria, is best adapted to the needs of the former.  The broker must ensure the client’s requirements will be met effectively by the insurance policy.”

    Article 42 of the Private Insurance and Reinsurance Mediation Act, which refers to the information to be provided by the insurance intermediary prior to the conclusion of an insurance contract, provides:

    “Before an insurance contract is concluded, the insurance intermediary must, as a minimum, provide the customer with the following information:

    1. a) The broker’s identity and address.
    2. b) The Register in which the broker is registered, as well as the means of verifying such registration.”

    Insurance agents must inform the customer of the names of the insurance companies with which they can carry out the mediation activity in the insurance product offered.

    In order for the client to be able to exercise the right to information about the insurance entities for which they mediate, insurance agents must notify the client of the right to request such information.

    Banking and insurance operators, in addition to the provisions of the previous letter, must inform their clients that the advice given is provided for the purpose of taking out an insurance policy and not any other product that the credit institution may market.

    Insurance brokers must inform the client that they provide advice in accordance with the following obligations:

    “Insurance brokers are obliged to carry out and provide (to the customer) an objective analysis on the basis of a comparison of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered.  Brokers must do this so that they can formulate an objective recommendation.”

    On the basis of information provided by the customer, insurance intermediaries shall specify the requirements and needs of the customer, as well as the reasons justifying any advice they may have given on a particular insurance.  The intermediary must answer all questions raised by the client regarding the function and complexity of the proposed insurance contract.

    All intermediaries operating in Spain must comply with the rules laid down for reasons of general interest and the applicable rules on the protection of the insured, in accordance with the provisions of Article 65 of the Law on the Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

    Every insurance intermediary is obliged, before the conclusion of the insurance contract, to provide full disclosure.  In the event that a mediator was an Insurance Broker or independent mediator, he is also obliged to give advice in accordance with the obligation to carry out an objective analysis.  This must be provided on the basis of the analysis of a sufficient number of insurance contracts offered on the market for the risks to be covered.  The mediator can then formulate a recommendation, using professional criteria, in respect of the insurance contract that would be appropriate to the needs of the client.

    In the case in question, there is no evidence that the aforementioned information was provided to the client before the investment product was contracted.  Therefore, Article 42 of the regulations has been breached.

    Therefore, this Claims Service concludes that the mediator must justify the information and prior advice given to his client, so that the obligations imposed by the Law of Mediation can be understood to be fulfilled with the aim of protecting the insured.  Failure to comply with their obligations could be considered as one of the causes of the damage that would have occurred to their client.

    The claim is understood to be founded.  In the opinion of this Claims Service, the mediating entity has committed a breach of the regulations regulating the mediation activity – specifically of the provisions of articles 6 and 42 of Law 26/2006 of Mediation of Private Insurance and Reinsurance.

    The DGS requires the mediating entity to account to this Service, within a period of one month from the notification of this report, for the decision adopted in view of it, for the purposes of exercising the powers of surveillance and control that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise.

    The interested parties are informed that there is no appeal to this judgment.  Both the claimant and the mediating entity are made aware of their right to resort to the Courts of Justice to resolve any differences that may arise between them regarding the interpretation and compliance with the regulations in force regarding the mediation of private insurance and reinsurance, in accordance with the provisions of articles 24 and 117 of the Constitution.

    Chief Inspector of Unit

    Ministry of Economy and Enterprise

    Secretary of State for the Economy and Business Support

     

  • YET ANOTHER STRUCTURED NOTE SCAM BY OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL

    Pension Life Blog - YET ANOTHER STRUCTURED NOTE SCAM BY OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL - OMI - inappropriate structured productsROLL UP! ROLL UP! ME HEARTY SCAMMERS!  OMI’S LATEST STRUCTURED NOTE SCAM IS ONLY AVAILABLE UNTIL SEPTEMBER 28TH SO GET A JIGGLE ON WHILE STOCKS OF THIS TOXIC CRAP LAST!  WE ARE PROUD TO OFFER OUR VALUED SCAMMERS YET ANOTHER INVESTMENT SCAM

    BY OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL.

    This wonderful investment scamming opportunity with OMI, is open to all scammers – you need no qualifications and don’t have to be regulated.  If you want a bit of training in how to sell this rubbish inappropriate structured product to as many victims as possible, we can give you a quick five-minute whisper behind the bike shed.  But, trust me, it is easypeasylemonsqueezy – just lie.  Tell the victims about the “guaranteed 10% return” bit, but don’t tell them about the “capital at risk” bit.

    Pension Life Blog - YET ANOTHER STRUCTURED NOTE SCAM BY OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL - OMI - inappropriate structured productsSo, what are you waiting for?  You’ll earn 8% by selling your victims a useless OMI “PORTFOLIO” bond (don’t mention this is illegal in Spain) and then a further 8% from selling this toxic, high-risk BNP Paribas structured note (rubbish inappropriate structured product) which will tie your victims in for six years.

    This will give you plenty of time to explain away the losses as “only secondary market values” or “only paper losses”.  And by the time your victims realise what you’ve done to them, you’ll be long gone.  And most of them will commit suicide anyway, so they won’t be coming after you any time soon.

    BNP Paribas has a good reputation as being an ethical, solid company so that will certainly help you with sell these inappropriate structured products.  Just remember, tell the victims as little as possible about this product and hide the commissions you will earn – they will never find out and by the time their life savings have all gone up in smoke you will be sunning yourself on a Caribbean island, far away from the misery of those whose retirement income you will have destroyed.

    If the victims are ever organised enough to band together and form a group action, I’ll just promise to pay redress for their losses, organise a meeting and then cancel it at the last minute.  That ought to buy you enough time to make your getaway.

    Happy scamming – smiley face.  Love from Pete

    p.s. BTW, don’t worry about the email below the Mad Woman of Spain has sent out – most of the new victims will never have heard of her and by the time they do, it will be too late.  You’ve only got until 28th September to scam as many suckers as possible, so don’t just stand there – SCAM AWAY ME HEARTIES!

    p.p.s. Don’t worry about my quote about inappropriate structured products – I was just lying (something I’m pretty good at).  With the announcement of new regulations in Malta for QROPS, International Adviser has quoted managing director of OMI (soon to be Quilter) Peter Kenny: “Old Mutual International is encouraging all market participants to help rid the industry of inappropriate structured products”

    ———————————————————————————————————————————————————-

    ATTENTION PAUL EVANS – Head of Region – Middle East & Africa
    Old Mutual International (International Structured Scam Specialists)

    intmarketing@engage.omwealth.com

    1st September 2018

    Paul, are you completely mad?  OMI has been offering and buying inappropriate structured products for years and facilitating financial crime by scammers such as Continental Wealth Management.  OMI bought £94 million worth of fraudulent notes by Leonteq – which paid the scammers an extra 2% in commission.  So you must have been accepting business and investment instructions from other scammers besides CWM for at least six years between 2012 and 2016 – as well as for years prior to and subsequent to this period.

    And now you are offering more structured notes so scammers can line their pockets and ruin more victims?  Read your own marketing material Mate:

    “An autocall product with a six-year term paying at least 10% a year in USD or at least 7% a year in GBP. This is a capital at risk product.”

    You are a pathetic and revolting human being.  Which bit of CAPITAL AT RISK don’t you understand??  OMI has already disgraced itself by offering, buying and selling these totally inappropriate structured products – scam products -, and caused millions of pounds’ worth of destruction to innocent victims’ life savings.

    You, Peter Kenny, Steve Braudo and Paul Feeney are all as bad as each other – and none of you should be working in financial services.  Your conduct is utterly sickening: you are now proposing to ruin more lives and you still haven’t paid compensation for the lives you have destroyed already.

    How much commission are you paying the scammers on these toxic products?  6%?  8%?  10%?

    Instead of behaving with decency and dignity and honouring Old Mutual International’s promise to pay redress for OMI’s past failures, you are now preparing to launch a whole new tranche of financial crime and inappropriate structured products.

    You are all disgusting and this needs to be exposed and all of you outed for the evil scum you are.

    Angie

    From: Paul Evans – Old Mutual International <intmarketing@engage.omwealth.com>
    Subject: Competitive, transparent, simple – new tranche of structured products

  • Structured notes – knowing the risks

    Structured notes – knowing the risks

    In many pension scams, we see the use of totally unsuitable, high-risk, for-professional-investor-only structured notes. These notes often offer the introducer high commissions. However, they are risky, fixed-term investments that often end in the loss of some – or even all – of the fund invested. Therefore, these types of investments are totally unsuitable for a pension fund. Firstly, let me explain what a structured note is,  and then we can go through structured notes – knowing the risks.

    Pension Life Blog - Say no to structured notes for pensions - structured notes - knowing the risks

    So what the hell are structured notes?  And why should retail investors say NO to them?

    A structured note is an IOU from an investment bank that uses derivatives to create exposure to one or more investments. For example, you can have a structured note betting on the S&P 500 Price Index, the Emerging Market Price Index, or both. The combinations are almost limitless.

    A pension fund is referred to as a retail investment, so it should be placed in a low to medium risk investment. Generally, structured notes are labeled high-risk, for professional investors only and, therefore, no pension fund should ever be invested into them.

    Pension Life and regulators warn that structured notes are not suitable for Pension investments, they are unsecured and high risk. If offered as a pension investment it could be a pension scam.

    Structured notes are frequently peddled by less-scrupulous financial advisers – as well as outright scammers – as a “high-yield, low-risk”, supposedly backdoor way to own stocks.  However, regulators have warned that investors can get burned – which they frequently do.  If the investment banks can flog it, they will make just about any toxic cocktail you can dream up.  In reality, a structured note is an unsecured debt issued by a bank or brokerage firm – and the amount of money the investor might (or might not) get back is pegged to the performance of stocks or broad market indexes. 

    Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

    With structured notes, there is no capital protection; no flexibility; no portfolio enhancement; no increased returns and no limit to the risk of loss of capital.

    In the case of CWM, 1,000 people with 100 million pounds, were invested in structured notes and many of them lost large chunks of their funds. The CWM scam, headed by Darren Kirby, used structured notes with Commerzbank, Nomura, RBC and Leonteq, and many of the notes crashed.

    John Rodgers fell victim to the CWM scam after being cold called by a salesman called Dean Stogsdill . His £202,000 pension pot was invested into high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes referred to as “Blue Chip Notes”. Today John’s pension fund is worth just £60,000 (if he is lucky).

    OMI  help facilitate the unqualified, unlicensed and unregulated CWM scammers – victims of this scam were also tied into a useless, pointless insurance bond for ten years – courtesy of OMI. Whilst the value of these pension funds steadily plummeted, OMI stood idly by and watched it happen.

    Pension Life Blog - Say no to structured notes for pensions what is a structured notes - knowing the risks

    In the case of the Continental Wealth Management scam, the life offices – Old Mutual International, SEB and Generali, invested up to 1,000 victims’ life savings in structured notes.  The majority of these toxic notes were from Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Leonteq – some of which were, allegedly, fraudulent.  Victims are facing huge losses – and a few have had their retirement savings wiped out entirely and a couple are now in negative territory due to the parasitic life offices continuing to take their quarterly fees (based on the original investment) as the investors are trapped into these spurious “bonds” for up to ten years.

    We are now fighting to get the investors’ money back.  But meanwhile, we must stress: do not use an advisory firm that uses structured notes.  These toxic instruments are only for professional investors and should not EVER be used for ordinary, retail investors.

  • WANTED: MAGIC FAIRY TO CURE WHAT’S WRONG WITH FINANCIAL SERVICES OFFSHORE

    WANTED: MAGIC FAIRY TO CURE WHAT’S WRONG WITH FINANCIAL SERVICES OFFSHORE

    Humour me – you may consider me to be naive – but I believe that the ills of financial services (especially offshore) can be put right.  All it takes is for the ethical stakeholders to outlaw the unethical ones.  Yes, it will be a bit like something out of the Old Testament – but I firmly believe it can be done.  And, more importantly, it MUST be done.

    So many thousands of victims have lost part or all of their life savings already – and these people must be compensated.  But, above all, future victims must be prevented.

    Here’s my TOP TEN wishes that I want the Magic Financial Services Fairy to grant (as a matter of urgency):

    Governments in the UK and all expat jurisdictions must wake up to scams – both offshore and at home.    They must empower/galvanise law-enforcement agencies and give them the resources to tackle financial crime.

     

    Regulators must put together effective regulations – and then ENFORCE them.  Regulations on their own are worthless and pointless – the industry must be policed and failure to comply with regulations must be severely sanctioned.

    Ceding pension providers must stop handing over thousands of pension transfers to scammers.  The Scorpion campaign has had a negligible effect and all leading providers are still at it.

     

    Advisory firms must be regulated – and not just for insurance.  If all a firm does is sell insurance, that is fine.  But if pension and investment advice is given, the firm must be properly regulated.

     

    Advisers must be appropriately qualified.  If they don’t have the right qualifications, they must demonstrate that they are studying and aiming to qualify within a reasonable, pre-determined time frame.

     

     

    Investors with DB scheme transfers must get proper advice – avoiding flimflam which takes no responsibility for the end result of the transfer. QROPS providers must ensure they only accept business from regulated firms.

     

    QROPS providers must also ensure they have understood and verified the members’ risk profiles – and then ensure that any investments made on behalf of those members are in line with their risk profile.

     

    Life offices must stop accepting business from known scammers and unregulated firms – and cease investing victims’ life savings in unsuitable assets – such as structured notes and UCIS funds.

     

     

     

    Life offices must pay redress to their victims for investment losses caused by negligence and fraud.

     

    There must be a quality assurance system to which all offshore advisers, life offices, trustees and fund managers subscribe and adhere.

     

  • OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL V LEONTEQ CASE MOVED TO LONDON

    OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL V LEONTEQ CASE MOVED TO LONDON

    Old Mutual International filed a High Court application on 16th March 2018. 

    On 20.3.18, Old Mutual obtained a judgment in the High Court of Justice of the Isle of Man (Case Reference 18/0012).  His Honour The Deemster Doyle, First Deemster and Clerk of the Rolls delivered his determination to OMI’s lawyer, Elizabeth Simpson of Simcocks.

    But now Leonteq has been successful in having the proceedings transferred from the IoM to London.  This will considerably help Leonteq and hinder OMI.

     

     

    OMI’s case is that they are the victims of a fraud.  Between 2012 and 2016, OMI invested approximately £200,000,000 in structured notes sold by Leonteq.  The purchase of these notes was “conducted” on the truthfulness of representations made by Leonteq as to the amount of fees and costs to be deducted from the investments.  OMI’s case is that what Leonteq claimed was false and fraudulent.  The investments performed poorly as a result of the excessive level of fees.  The losses are currently estimated to be well over £20,000,000 (although it is expected that this will increase – especially with the current devasting share price falls due to Covid 19).

    OMI’s case against Leonteq is on the basis of fraudulent misrepresentation, conspiracy, constructive trust, breach of fiduciary duty, knowing receipt, dishonest assistance and unjust enrichment.

     

     

    Let us look in some detail at the above aspects of the case.

    Leonteq Securities has gone from strength to strength since this fraud began – despite the disgrace of this criminal matter.  Their net profit in the first half of 2018 was declared as £30.73 million, and turnover £104.31 million – up 36% on the previous year.  My first question is: are they still selling ultra high-risk structured notes?  My second question is: what was the difference between the “ordinary” notes which paid 6% commission to the scammers, and the fraudulent notes which paid 8% to the scammers.  Were the latter 33% more risky?  Looking at the victims’ statements, it is impossible to tell the difference between the 6% notes and the 8% ones.  There is no obvious higher failure rate – they just all look equally dire.

    Right in the middle of the OMI/Leonteq matter, it was announced in 2014 that two salesmen were going to be added to the London branch: Walter Treur and Anders Stromberg joined on 25/27 June 2014.  Treur was ex Commerzbank – another provider of toxic structured notes which also failed dismally and caused catastrophic losses to the Continental Wealth Management’s victims – and Stromberg was ex JP Morgan and Credit Suisse (although he had been unemployed for some time).

    Another Leonteq employee, Michael Hartweg, left his job as deputy chief executive to spend all his time flogging the new business of toxic structured notes.

    So, it is clear that Leonteq was making a lot of money out of these products.  But, the question remains: was Leonteq complicit in fraud – or were they blissfully ignorant and just grateful for the huge profits they were pulling in?  

    In my humble view, structured notes are like a lot of other products which – if properly sold and used – can, in some cases, be beneficial/useful/enjoyable/harmless, but – if irresponsibly or inappropriately sold – can be deadly.  Examples are: tobacco; alcohol; pornography; rat poison; fireworks; painkillers; kitchen knives; peanuts; plastic bags; cannabis.

    Structured notes are “FOR PROFESSIONAL INVESTORS ONLY AND NOT FOR RETAIL DISTRIBUTION AND WARN OF DANGER OF LOSING PART OR ALL OF AN INVESTOR’S CAPITAL”.

    I wonder which bit of that OMI failed to understand.  They bought £200 million quid’s worth of the fraudulent 8% notes – how much of the 6% ones did they buy?  We know that a large chunk of these went to the Continental Wealth victims and caused devastating losses.  But that was just Leonteq – there was also Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and BNP Paribas.  And there wasn’t just OMI – there was SEB and Generali doing the same thing.

     

    Let’s be honest, the whole thing was a fraud.  In the Continental Wealth Management case, CWM was a fraud; the structured notes were a fraud; the insurance bonds were a fraud; the hidden commissions on everything were a fraud.  No party comes out of this with any honour.  But, we must also bear in mind that OMI bought £200,000,000 of this toxic, fraudulent crap and allowed it to be used as investments for retail, low-risk pension savers.  Additionally, OMI accepted dealing instructions from an unregulated firm which was selling the insurance bonds illegally.  But let us not forget that Generali and SEB were just as bad.

    Maybe Leonteq and OMI will volunteer to settle without a bloody legal battle – from which only the blood-sucking lawyers will win.  The millions that both Leonteq and OMI will be paying over the coming months and years would be better spent on paying redress to the real victims in this disgraceful debacle – the Continental Wealth Management clients who entrusted their life savings to the scammers, the life offices and the structured note providers such as Leonteq – but let’s not forget Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Canada and Nomura.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Old Mutual International (OMI) facilitating financial crime

    Old Mutual International (OMI) facilitating financial crime

    From 2010 up to the present day, Old Mutual International has been facilitating financial crime by allowing scammers to misuse and abuse OMI “life bonds” to scam victims out of their life savings.

    The victims of the CWM scam are still wondering how the hell they lost an average of 60% of their life savings. Old Mutual International (Quilter) was the provider for the bulk of the life bonds used in the CWM debacle, taking huge amounts of business from unregulated scammers Continental Wealth Management.  OMI also paid CWM huge amounts of commission – in the full knowledge that CWM was unregulated and a known, serial scammer.

    Pension Life members of the CWM victim group have supplied their figures to us. The losses are huge and we believe that these figures need to be shared with the public so Old Mutual International (OMI) understand and take responsibility for the devastation they have facilitated to the lives of the victims.

    Pension Life Blog- Old mutual international (OMI)

     

    Pension Life Blog- Old mutual international (OMI) CWM victims

     

    Pension Life Blog- Old mutual international (OMI) CWM victims

    Pension Life Blog- Old mutual international (OMI) CWM victims

    Let us hope that Old Mutual International will step up to the plate.  The people who work at OMI are human beings, with loved ones.  Hopefully, they can imagine how they would feel if this tragedy had happened to one of their loved ones – while the people at OMI stood by and did nothing to stop the devastation.  For more than eight years, OMI employees sat on their hands while the so-called investments inside their “insurance bonds” plummeted in value.  And OMI did absolutely nothing.  Just kept taking their quarterly fees.

    OMI will, of course, try to say it was not their fault.  That it was down to the advisers appointed by the victims.  Or the trustees.  Or both.  Or the Boogeyman.   OMI will claim that they had every right to sit there and watch millions of pounds worth of life savings being wiped off investors’ funds, while continuing to take out their huge quarterly fees.

    I wonder how OMI/Quilter directors would feel if this happened to one of their loved ones.  Or if someone they cared about had been drowning, and a crowd of people had stood by and watched them die.  Because, make no mistake, there will be deaths as a result of this.  And the people at OMI will have this on their conscience for the rest of their lives.

    OMI’s victims have died.  And more are dying.  This industry is about people.  Let us see if OMI cares about their fellow human beings.  Because, so far, there is zero evidence that they give a toss.