A High Court Judge has called for an investigation into the FCA’s dismal failings over the lack of action prior to the collapse of the London Capital & Finance bond. More than a dozen MPs have also called for Andrew Bailey – £600k a year head of the FCA – to go.

High court judge leads inquiry into London Capital & Finance scandal

Dame Elizabeth Gloster, a leading high court judge with a specialist background in corporate failures, finance and fraud, will be heading up two investigations: the failure of the London Capital & Finance investment bond; the even more scandalous failure of the FCA to prevent 11,000 investors from losing £236,000,000 in the failed bond.

FCA-registered LC&F (London Capital & Finance) promised returns of between 6.5% and 8% to more than 11,000 victims – who may or may not ever see a penny. The FCA had been warned about the likely collapse of LC&F three years before it finally went down the plug hole – taking £236 million of investors’ cash with it. The FCA has made no apology.

Even the government is finally sitting up and taking notice of the UK’s embarrassingly hopeless regulator and the problem of high-risk investments (promoted to low-risk investors). The economic secretary to the Treasury – John Glen – has urged swinging into action for a change.

But can a government minister and a high-court judge bring the regulator to justice? Or will they need the Fire Brigade and the Royal Marines to lend a helping hand?

 Pension and investment scam victims have, for years, begged the government, regulators and police to take some action. But far from recognising the problem and doing something about it, they have simply turned their backs on the victims – and let the scammers carry on scamming. Even serving police officers can’t get the police to take action against the scammers.

Dame Elizabeth Gloster must properly use her experience and enthusiasm to investigate this disgraceful situation thoroughly. She really ought to “ensure this type of thing doesn’t happen again” – then perhaps all the other scams that the FCA has facilitated over the years can also be investigated?

Over a dozen MPs have demanded that hopelessly expensive (and hopeless) Andrew Bailey – head of the FCA – should be sacked over his failure to handle the LC&F failure properly (or at all). But Bailey isn’t that bothered, as he is looking forward to his next cozy gig as governor of the Bank of England.

If Andrew Bailey is let off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist with a wet fish, and sent packing with a fat cheque and huge pension, there will be hell to pay. The thought of such a limp, lazy lizzard running the Bank of England is a bit like the thought of Boris Johnson being Prime Minister (let us not tempt fate!).

I have just been reliably informed that there weren’t 11,000 investors. There were 19,000.