CompaniesDec 3 2015

FCA bans former IFA playboy

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FCA bans former IFA playboy

The FCA has banned former financial adviser Phillip Harold Boakes and will confiscate £165,731-worth of his property, following his convictions over a £3.5m fraud.

In March, Southwark Crown Court heard Boakes spent around £1.3m funding his lifestyle, including £175,218 on cars – including a Maserati and the down payments on a Ferrari – and £213,659 on foreign holidays to the Bahamas and St Lucia.

The FCA has issued a final notice against Boakes, banning him from performing any function related to any regulated activity.

The notice states that Mr Boakes carried out a regulated activity in the UK, accepting deposits from consumers, whilst not being an authorised or exempt person. It also said that between 1 October 2002 and 1 January 2013 he was knowingly a party to the carrying on of a business, Currency Trader Limited (dissolved) for a fraudulent purpose, and that between 1 January 2011 and 1 January 2013 he used various instruments which he knew to be false, with the intention of inducing particular consumers to accept them as genuine and, by reason of so accepting them, to do or not to do some act to their own or any other person’s prejudice.

John Kirby, enforcement and market oversight division at the FCA, said: “The authority has concluded, on the basis of the facts and matters described in the decision notice, that Mr Boakes is not a fit and proper person to perform any functions as his conduct demonstrates a clear and serious lack of honesty, integrity and reputation.”

Boakes was a registered adviser until 2008 but told some clients he was still an IFA and promised guaranteed returns through his company Currency Trader Ltd.