London Capital and Finance

Botheredin

Some other properties may be changing hands and here are some more assets
https://www.instagram.com/annarae1027/?hl=en

Botheredin

Another helpful link?
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/918213127/LEWIS--GOLDING/companies

masonic

Malthusian wrote: »

Wrong. Not a single one of those cases involves regulated advice. That's why I brought them up.

The fact that bad advice from a regulated adviser is a protected claim is not in doubt and not relevant to LCF.

You will probably have a better understanding of these cases than I do. My interpretation is that it was argued that approval of the financial promotions sent out to retail investors was taken to constitute advice and that is what opened the door to FSCS compensation. That would be a pretty severe bending of the rules and the precedent could be used to entertain claims regarding any financial product in which a financial promotion was approved by a FCA regulated firm.

And yet here we are.

The blogger appears not to have heard of Catalyst / ARM.

The question is what is to stop anyone from successfully obtaining an FSCS payout for products and services specifically exempt from cover using the same bending of the rules to treat a financial promotion signed off by an authorised firm as "advice"? I can think of at least half a dozen financial promotions relating to P2P loans in which I was misled and lost money (and the P2P platforms concerned are unlikely to have the means to put investors back into the position they'd have been in if they had not invested), should I get my complaint in to push through to the FOS and perhaps the FSCS in due course?

Given this precedent, I have to change my mind on FSCS protection for LCF bondholders. The rule-book has clearly been tossed out of the window and the FSCS may well entertain their claims if they come via the FOS.

masonic

AnotherJoe wrote: »

My bad and apologies for using the wrong initials (again).

The point is, the organizations that should have been protecting consumers clearly failed to act on blatantly obvious failings, not on the inherent alleged fraud (though that could have also been deduced from the nature of the misleading adverts), but on letting those adverts run for so many years before taking action.


Added to that, i dont think, as a point of principle, it should be allowed to mention FCA certification in an advert thats pretty much only selling something that doesn't have that FCA certification apply.

If Acme Financial sells two products/services one of which has FCA regulation applicable and the other doesnt, blazing "FCA Regulated" on the advert for the non applicable product very clearly gives a misleading impression whatever the small print or footnotes say. And that is, indeed why the adverts were (ludicrously late) withdrawn. The discovery of alleged fraud came later when the alleged Ponzi scheme was shut down.
I think both organizations were disgracefully remiss (obviously so) and that fact by itself might lead to their being compensation. Might. I can see why creditors think its worth a shot.

Yes, agree with all of that.

Reaper

Botheredin wrote: »

Some other properties may be changing hands and here are some more assets
https://www.instagram.com/annarae1027/?hl=en

For me the stand out image on that page isn't the helicopter, it's the picture saying "Being Nice Gets You Nowhere". It could be the company motto.

Reaper

RG2015 wrote: »

Treasury Committee chair Nicky Morgan has asked the City watchdog and the Treasury to launch an investigation into the mini-bond seller London Capital and Finance.

The focus is now on LCF but unless lessons are applied elsewhere it's a bit late.

Being wise after the event it is obvious paying Surge 20% + high returns to investors is completely unrealistic. Yet Blackmore also paid Surge 20%, also pays investors high returns, and also had dodgy adverts and is still trading.

Maybe the focus should be on dealing with other similar companies before they fail, and what can be done to stop similar ones starting up in the future.

Supercalafragalistic

Reaper wrote: »

The focus is now on LCF but unless lessons are applied elsewhere it's a bit late.

Being wise after the event it is obvious paying Surge 20% + high returns to investors is completely unrealistic. Yet Blackmore also paid Surge 20%, also pays investors high returns, and also had dodgy adverts and is still trading.

Maybe the focus should be on dealing with other similar companies before they fail, and what can be done to stop similar ones starting up in the future.

Couldnt agree with you more. Damage limitation would be a good idea here. Cant inderstand why the sfo isnt looking into all the activities of the marketeers to make sure the ‘business model’ is not being replicated .

AnotherJoe

jimjames wrote: »

HMRC have also confirmed today that LCF ISAs have been voided and any recovered funds will also be outside the ISA wrapper.

https://damn-lies-and-statistics.blogspot.com/2019/03/lcf-hmrc-isa-notice.html

And how many years did FCA and HMRC allow these to run before retrospectively deciding they werent eligible? Why isnt the process to get your ISA cleared by relevant bodies, and only then start selling it rather than as seems from this, start anything you want call it an ISA and see if anyone notices?

And is the FCA not liable if they allowed this to run as an ISA? Wouldn't the woman on the clapham omnibus naturally believe that an FCA accredited organization which runs an ISA is indeed running an ISA thats been validated?

Whats to stop HMRC turning round and saying that HL or Fidelity etc ISA's are no longer, in retrospect, ISA's?
Whilst there may well been fraud being conducted (allegedly) by LCF, it appears that we now have Advertising Standards, FCA and HMRC being astonishingly culpable by inadequately policing the environment in which such alleged fraud can take place.

Malthusian

masonic wrote: »

You will probably have a better understanding of these cases than I do. My interpretation is that it was argued that approval of the financial promotions sent out to retail investors was taken to constitute advice and that is what opened the door to FSCS compensation.

Your interpretation is wrong. The claims against Catalyst and IPM were in respect of their activities in arranging (bringing about) deals in investments. There has never been any attempt to claim they were giving personalised advice which would have fallen apart instantly.

The question is what is to stop anyone from successfully obtaining an FSCS payout for products and services specifically exempt from cover using the same bending of the rules to treat a financial promotion signed off by an authorised firm as "advice"?

Not a lot. Whether the FSCS changes its mind again (it's not a court of law and FSCS decisions don't set legally binding precedents). Whether broke investors can find the means and the wherewithal to challenge decisions against them in the courts as IPM's did. How good their lawyers are.

I can think of at least half a dozen financial promotions relating to P2P loans in which I was misled and lost money (and the P2P platforms concerned are unlikely to have the means to put investors back into the position they'd have been in if they had not invested), should I get my complaint in to push through to the FOS and perhaps the FSCS in due course?

Can't see why not, frankly. P2P is regulated now and FOS complaints are free. There's certainly an argument that the P2P firms didn't meet their duty of care if they didn't do proper due diligence (which they didn't as that's not how P2P works) on the financial promotions they passed to you in exchange for a fat commission, and should reasonably have known that the information in them was false. Whether the FOS agrees with it, and where you go from there if they don't, is a whole other matter.

Malthusian

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Why isnt the process to get your ISA cleared by relevant bodies, and only then start selling it rather than as seems from this, start anything you want call it an ISA and see if anyone notices?

Because the whole point of the Government introducing the IFISA was to open up the ISA market to the likes of LCF and P2P platforms flogging junk loans to God knows who, and allow them to benefit from the "CAT standard" perception that the public has of ISAs. And that would have defeated the objective.

Whats to stop HMRC turning round and saying that HL or Fidelity etc ISA's are no longer, in retrospect, ISA's?

That one's easy. HL and Fidelity don't allow non-transferable securities in their ISAs.