Half of all industry complaints against Fos upheld

As part of the Fos’s Annual Review, an independent assessor has carried out a review of cases where a consumer or a firm has already referred the matter to the review team for investigation but remains dissatisfied. The assessor, Michael Barnes CBE, upheld six out of the 13 complaints he received from firms, most of which were IFAs or stockbrokers. Roughly half the complaints related to case fees where the complaint had subsequently been dismissed without consideration of the merits or had deemed to be outside the ombudsman’s jurisdiction. But there was only one case where Barnes cons...