Broker slapped with fine and ban for peddling UCIS to clients
By Matei RoscaCraig Stuart Cameron was given a final notice by the FCA last week, banning him for life from performing any regulated activity carried on by an authorised firm or exempt person/firm…
Craig Stuart Cameron was given a final notice by the FCA last week, banning him for life from performing any regulated activity carried on by an authorised firm or exempt person/firm.
On top of his ban, Mr Cameron has been slapped with a £350,000 fine for miss-selling unregulated collective investment schemes to his clients.
B&C understands this order effectively prohibits him to be involved in the financial industry in any decision-making capacity from now on.
Cameron, the ex-Director of financial advisor Burlington between 2003 and 2009, was chastised by the financial regulator for lacking “honesty and integrity” and for having “deliberately flouted regulatory requirements, which were designed to safeguard retail investors, in favour of selling high risk UCIS for potentially lucrative gains.”
The UCIS he pushed has failed, to the tune of £30 million on 800 investors. Based on property developments in Eastern Europe, the investment scheme ought to have been never promoted without proper checks, yet Cameron got the Leslie & Nuding advisory firm (known Leslie & Swallow and having traded as Burlington Funds) to do his bidding after Burlington refused.
He went on to involve the company anyway in order to take advantage of its credibility and draw profits . The FCA stated: “[Cameron] deliberately involved Burlington in promoting and arranging investments in the three UCIS, without the knowledge of Burlington’s principal and in breach of Burlington’s agreement with its principal” and “recklessly devised a structure and participated in a process for promoting and arranging investments in the three UCIS that was likely to provide false assurance to customers, potential customers and others with whom he dealt,” allowing investors to believe the funds he was promoting were safer than they really were.
Cameron wasn’t the first to be punished by the FCA for breach of this regulation. Only a week ago, Messrs John Leslie and Jeffrey Bennett of the aforementioned Leslies & Nuding and Burlington Associates were fined £28,000 each and banned by the FCA in an investigation on the same activity.
The FCA banned promotion of UCIS-type funds to ordinary investors in June 2013 with effect on January 1st this year, restricting their scope to sophisticated financiers after consumers were repeatedly scammed.
Keywords: broker, ban, fine, fca, financial conduct authority, regulator, unregulated, crime, UCIS, financial advisor