RegulationApr 27 2017

Adviser's case against FCA thrown out

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Adviser's case against FCA thrown out

A financial adviser’s case against the Financial Conduct Authority has been thrown out because it had no reasonable prospect of succeeding.

Anthony Badaloo had his permissions to trade as financial adviser cancelled after he was convicted of trespassing and theft.

He had referred the decision to the Upper Tribunal but the tribunal ruled that hearing the case would constitute an abuse of process because it would allow Mr Badaloo to argue that his conviction had either not occurred or he had been wrongly convicted or sentenced.

But the tribunal found problems with Mr Badaloo’s case because he had not addressed the substance of the FCA’s case.

Upper Tribunal judge Roger Berner said that while the burden of proof was on the FCA, this did not absolve Mr Badaloo from putting forward his own case.

He said: “Mr Badaloo’s case continues to lack not only form but any material substance.

“As it stands, it cannot be regarded as having any reasonable prospect of succeeding against the authority’s case as presented.

“Despite Mr Badaloo having told me that he had legal advice, there is no evidence of any objective or rational legal analysis being brought to bear in any of the documents filed by Mr Badaloo.

“Such attempt as there has been at finding legal support for the propositions advanced is of a barrack room quality, replete with irrelevance and non-sequitur, and is without any legal merit.

“It does not come close to advancing an arguable case for Mr Badaloo.”

Among the evidence Mr Badaloo attempted to use to support his case were statements from a consultant of an organisation called AS Citizen Advice Agency, from a law student and from his partner, which Mr Berner said made “the same flawed attempts at providing legal justification for [his] position” but he said they did not address any of the issues of substance in the FCA’s statement of case.

Mr Berner also said a sworn affidavit of truth from a common law investigator was of “no value”.

He added: “Equally valueless in the context of these proceedings is the Affidavit of the Truth sworn by ‘[The Judge Captain]: Carl-Peter Hoffman the spiritual moral being’.”

Barnet-based Mr Badaloo, whose company traded as Church Hill Finance, had been authorised by the FCA since 2004 but since April 2015 he had repeatedly failed to comply with its requests for documents relating to his business records and creditor position.

The case stems from January 2015, when Mr Badaloo informed the FCA that because of a dispute with Kleinwort Benson he had temporarily moved his office but would return to it several months later.

In the March the FCA received a letter from Kleinwort Benson informing it that it had obtained a possession order for the office but Mr Badaloo had repeatedly refused to empty the property of its contents – including his client records.

Through the April and May the FCA attempted to clarify information about Mr Badaloo’s place of business, his financial resources and his compliance with record management rules.

In May 2015 Kleinwort Benson told the FCA that Mr Badaloo had been arrested and charged with trespass and criminal damage.

In October Mr Badaloo was convicted on indictment at Harrow Crown Court of one count of trespassing and one count of theft and was sentenced for to a community order of unpaid work of 100 hours, and was ordered to pay £3,500 in costs, plus a £60 victim surcharge.

damian.fantato@ft.com