The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has undertaken its first two separate criminal prosecution, for failures to provide information requested as part of ongoing investigations.
TPR’s regulatory intervention report details how it used its section 72 power to require information from London-based Ashley Wilson Solicitors LLP which failed for over eight months to provide it with documents.
The documents related to a property linked to an individual who was involved in a TPR pension scam investigation. The solicitors and their client were not themselves under investigation.
The Pensions Regulator considered the offence as being at the top end of the scale of seriousness for offences of this kind.
This was because the failure was over eight months, persisted despite numerous demands to produce the documents, and was deliberate – a case of refusal rather than mere neglect, according to the regulator.
TPR stated a higher standard of behaviour is expected in this case as solicitors are subject to strict professional and ethical rules.
The senior partner, Anthony Ashley Wilson, and Ashley Wilson Solicitors LLP, pleaded guilty to refusing to provide documents required under section 72 of the Pensions Act 2004 without a reasonable excuse, which is an offence under section 77 of the Act.
The district judge ordered Mr Wilson to pay a £4,000 fine, £7,500 costs and a £120 victim surcharge.
He ordered Ashley Wilson Solicitors LLP to pay a £2,700 fine, £2,500 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge.
In a separate case, TPR prosecuted Patrick McLarry, the chief executive of Hampshire-based Yateley Industries for the Disabled Limited, for failing to provide documents linked to an investigation into unusual scheme investments, despite being pursued for over 18 months for the information.
Mr McLarry pleaded not guilty to refusing to produce, without reasonable excuse, documents required under section 72, but he was convicted of the offence, also at Brighton Magistrates’ Court.
Finding Mr McLarry guilty and ordering him to pay a £2,500 fine, £4,000 costs and a £120 victim surcharge, District Judge Christopher James said he had imposed a significant financial penalty to reflect high culpability.
The week after his conviction, Mr McLarry provided the relevant information to TPR. The information required from Ashley Wilson Solicitors LLP and Anthony Wilson was obtained when TPR executed a search warrant at the firm’s offices prior to the conviction.
The actions outlined in TPR's regulatory intervention report alerts others to the potential for TPR to bring criminal charges for neglecting or refusing to provide information or produce documents. Fines available to the court are unlimited.
Nicola Parish, executive director for Frontline Regulation at TPR, said: “Our power to require companies and individuals to provide us with information is an important tool in our regulatory case work. The refusal to provide specifically requested information was the simple reason for these two recent prosecutions.
“From now on we will not hesitate to prosecute further companies or individuals if they refuse to give us the right information to investigate cases and ultimately protect pension savers.”
