SIPPOct 5 2021

Liberty Sipp claims reach £50m in 8 months

twitter-iconfacebook-iconlinkedin-iconmail-iconprint-icon
Search supported by
Liberty Sipp claims reach £50m in 8 months

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid out almost £48.8m in compensation on claims it received against defunct self-invested personal pension provider Liberty Sipp.

The lifeboat scheme told FTAdviser has received 1,795 claims against the Sipp provider, which was declared in default in late January. 

Out of these 1,357 have been successful, 153 unsuccessful and a further 285 are being processed at the moment.

Liberty Sipp was placed in default at the beginning of this year (January 25), which is when the FSCS started to pay out on successful claims.

It was advised to enter administration in April last year due to the number of claims it received relating to high-risk non-standard investments.

The Liberty Sipp Limited business and customer assets were sold to EBS Pensions Limited, part of the Embark Group, in October 2018, which then rebranded the Liberty Sipp to Option Sipp.

However, the legal entity Liberty Sipp Limited was not part of the sale and retained its liabilities, which were later passed on to the FSCS. 

Liberty Sipp had facilitated high-risk investments in unregulated products such as Ethical Forestry. 

Earlier this year (June), a group action against Liberty Sipp fell through after a statutory moratorium was placed on the proceedings.

FTAdviser understands Wixted & Co had acted on behalf of 28 claimants and that test cases were selected and a trial was due to be heard in September 2020.

As the case was not able to go ahead, the individuals had to submit their claims to the FSCS instead.

amy.austin@ft.com

What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on FTAletters@ft.com to let us know