Regulatory Legal turns on N&P IFA in Keydata battle

What pride Mr Fatchett must bring to the legal profession.

Having been a loyal reader of this website for many years and witnessed the vitriol directed at "ambulance-chasing" law firms on issues such as endowments, splits, pensions etc - it is deeply ironic the support Mr Fatchett agthers from within our industry.

I'm sure ethics would prevent RL representing Keydata but with the modern day Chinese Walls who knows.....

Isn't the law supposed to consider justice without fear or favour. It is to some extent a "win win" situation fro RL in that in getting to the truth of where liability should lay, Rl may be paid well, but if as I understand it they are working on a no win no fee basis for N&P claiments, then if RL haven't picked the right side of that argument it will cost THEM.

The annoying thing with the whole debacle is that anyone should have to be paying any of the plethora of hangers on PWC, Deloitte and RL to get to the truth, when the F-pack are pre funded and should have disaster plans in place for just these sorts of eventualtities and know where the FSCS levy should fall, plus where liability should lie BEFORE a disaster as it's not as if broadly similar things have not happened before...

....to earn a crust then best of luck to him.

It is something I have considered doing on many occasions of late because my once steadfast loyalty to the cause of IFAs has been eroded by the apathetic and the unworthy.

If you adopt that practice across the board then why charge IFA's to launch a judicial review? Could this not be construed as effectively subsidising the "no win, no fee" strategy for customers against regulated firms?

Please consider N&P "advise".

There are many it seems customers of N&P who were filtered down to N&P IFA who sold them in many cases just a Keydata "no stockmarket exposure" investment with all of their life savings, amounts I have seen are £130,000 and £140,000 to boost their income in retirement. And nothing else so all an ordinary persons life savings in one place in one plan and sold to them as safe and low risk.

Is that investment ? or speculation ?

As to Mr Fatchet working on a no win no fee well that is up to him to negotiate with his clients just as it is up to us to negotiate the way we charge. A lot of these people have not a lot left nor are they earning any longer.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - (Act IV, Scene II).

(Only joking Gareth!)

To Evan Owen I would say get in the real world. It is not that advisor are apathetic it is just we are trying to keep everyone happen, our clients, the regulators, the companies we deal with and lastly out wives and children.

As a small advisor I simply do not have time for all this bickering and in fighting that goes on. Someone told me a long time ago never to stick your head above the parapet you get it blown off.

When do we win anything, we simply get mown down because we are fragmented and full of self interested and often self righteous individuals

As I see it Regulatory Legal will do whatever is necessary for them to put bread and butter on the table. If that means batting at both ends then so bet it.

I assume when you say "why charge IFA's to launch a judicial review" that you can confirm you ahve put your hand in your pocket an paid LLP the £260 (I think it was) I willingly paid towards the £30k it will cost to mount a Judicial Review?

Secondly my experinece of the Keydata debacle has been the same as Bob Donaldson's the most irrate Keydata Victims are those whose adviser advised them to put most if not ALL their life savings in the Keydata Secure Incoem Plans. Thats IS bad advice whether you are a tied adviser or a IFA and tehre is NO question about it.

N&P had their own IFA arm selling these bonds and as I understand it they had a "special deal" where they were not just getting the standard 3% IFA commission, but considerably more....

If Garth Fatchet and RL were to go for ALL IFAs and not just N&P and those advisers who put ALL a client money in Keydata, then there might be a story here, but until he/they do, I will treat him with courtesy and assume he is a man of principle until proved otherwise.

If it is bad advice from a regulated entity i.e. N&P IFA then surely FOS would be a preferred route (free as well) and the complaint would be upheld. It is not about people not having any money because that is what the FOS was designed for - a free arbritation service avoiding the need of Joe Public to pursue an expensive civil claim.

Just like the endowment review - there is no need for the public to use external parties to lodge a complaint that should be covered under DISP.

This is surely a seperate issue to the FSCS compensation claim?

In terms of funding a judicial review, no we did not fund RL as our guidance was that it would be folly to pursue (note that by folly I do not mean fair) such a route.

"no financial experience required"

Follow

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/about/careers.html

You didn't answer the question, can you confirm you have put your hand in your pocket and paid LLP the £260 (I think it was) towards a JR?

My applogies, you did answer the question.... You don't have to win all the battles to win a war and sometimes you have to be willing to fight knowing you will/may loose.

Regardless of whether we believe that the employees at FOS are competent are not - it must always be better to point complainants down that path in the first instance rather than pursue the more expensive civil route?

Also, if you are saying that FOS is unfair then perhaps you need to check the most recent statistics on uphold of complaints for customers. I guess the success of FOS depends which side of the fence you are sitting?

Your comments about KeyData are accurate in regards to the commission paid. This product was sold as a high paying income fund, big pictures in the front of all branches to entice in clients, where there are better returns than deposit based accounts at the time.

Considering that the IFA's were targeted with sales it was not suprising that they sold alot of these, as it was an easy sale for coving their own salary with the potential of bonuses on top as well!

I could go on about the "sales" techniques but it would be enough to say that there were real IFAs within the IFA arm, who you could count on one hand, excluding the thumb, who did the job properly.

The FOS will judge each and every complaint individually.

There is no specialisation no filtering of complex cases within the FOS cases are handed down to adjudicators at random on a first in basis.

The case make well take 9 to 12 months to get to just this stage then it make take another 6 months to arrive at an adjudicators "opinion letter".

If the opinion is not agreed it then goes in another waiting in tray for another few months to get allocated to a ombudsman who can then take as long again.

So perhaps 2 or 3 years later you may have an individual case result.

At no stage may the case have been judged by anyone with any understanding of investments, risk, asset allocation or duty of care to the client that you may consider relevant or just basic knowledge.

When it comes to cost and time they may not be so far apart as you think for complex relatively high value cases.

my wife and I have money invested with Keydata andcannot get firm answers as to what nis going to happen to our money. The situation seems very complicated but does anyone know if Keydata are definitely gone or is there a rescue package possibly going to take them over and continue our policies?

It's a very worrying time as we have money above the FSA compensation scheme invested with them.

Keith a good start is to read as much as possible about this a good start is here on Citywire there have been a lot of articles above in right hand column under "more about this"

Also read this in depth story follow:-

http://www.mackrill.com/

You may wish to seek advise once you have read and understood the position.