A former director of collapsed IFA network Alpha 2 Omega (A2O) failed to act on a handful of "notorious" advisers known to be aggressively pushing unregulated collective investment schemes (UCIS) to clients, earning them the monikers 'the famous five' and 'the three amigos', FSA papers reveal.
Andrew Ruff was in charge of compliance at A2O, which entered administration in January last year after the FSA ordered it to stop carrying out regulated activities. Ruff was today banned by the FSA and fined £28,000 for compliance failings which led to the risk of customers receiving unsuitable investment advice. Another director, Richard Lindley, was fined £14,000. The FSA's Final Notice for Ruff reveals he was aware of a group of advisers among its 47 appointed representative (AR) firms who recommended a 'significant' amount of UCIS and other high risk products. These individual...
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