FCA bans former PI broker over false trial evidence

The FCA has banned former professional indemnity broker Stephen Robert Allen after he submitted a forged document and gave false evidence in a High Court trial.

The regulator was directed to ban Allen by the Upper Tribunal, which found that Allen was not a fit and proper person to perform any function relating to a regulated activity.

The Tribunal found that Allen had submitted a forged document in evidence and had knowingly given untrue evidence before the High Court in another matter.

The Tribunal also based its decision on the fact that Allen had tried to mislead the FCA about the full contents of the High Court trial.

Acting director of the FCA’s enforcement and market oversight division Georgina Philippou said: “We have taken action against Mr Allen because, as the Tribunal’s findings have made clear, he failed to demonstrate the standards of behaviour we expect.

“Those approved by us to engage in financial services have to be fit and proper, and an important aspect of this is honesty – including towards the FCA, towards customers and towards the Tribunal and the Courts.”

False evidence

The FCA (then the FSA), told Allen on 25 July 2012 that it was intending to prohibit him because of fees he had allegedly charged improperly to an insurance client.

Allen deferred the decision to the Tribunal. In support of his case, he produced a single redacted page from a High Court judgment on 16 December 2011, in which Allen was the claimant, with the intention of discrediting a witness due to give evidence against Allen for the FSA.

Allen refused to provide a full, unredacted copy of the judgment to the FCA despite being asked to do so by the FCA.

The FCA obtained a copy of the judgment from the Court transcribers and discovered that the judge had found that Allen had knowingly advanced and given untrue evidence to the High Court, which included submitting a forged document as evidence.

The FCA obtained permission from the Tribunal to rely on the findings in the High Court judgment and Allen’s subsequent attempts to conceal these from the FCA as grounds to prohibit him, in place of the FCA’s case concerning insurance fees.

After a trial in February 2014 the Tribunal concluded the following August that Allen was not a fit and proper person to perform any function in relation to a regulated activity, and that the FCA should prohibit him from doing so.

Allen applied for permission from the Court of Appeal to appeal the Tribunal’s decision but his application was dismissed in February 2015.