Renegade regulator Dennis Wheatley and his trigger-happy gang have had their knuckles well and truly rapped by whoever it is who does to regulators what leatherette foxstress Susan Quatro did to cans.
Wheato is one of five senior FCA gang members named and shamed in a hard hitting report on the so-called Pensionpaybackprobegate affair commissioned from acclaimed report writer Simon Device, a partner with law firm Cliff of Chance.
The incident in question, readers will recall, arose when FCA reps told Telegraph reporters they were planning to require pension providers to compensate everyone they’d ripped off down the years, thereby inducing panic and dismay among investors and wiping ££££££££££s off big insurers’ share prices.
Wheato, who was in another part of the woods when the FCA enjoyed its provocative little flirtation with Robin Hoodism, has responded to the damning report (which brands his outfit ‘seriously inadequate’) by sacking his comms team and cancelling the Senior Staff Christmas Outing (and party bags) by way of atonement.
Regulated entities will be relieved at being relieved of the expense of the FCA’s yuletide jollies, though probably less thrilled at picking up to £3.8m tab for the Cliff of Chance report on how it really wasn’t really a very good idea to suggest that pensions firms might have to pay back all their ill-gotten gains.
Having had its youthful exuberance well and truly kicked out of it, the FCA can hopefully now get on, during the short time remaining prior to its inevitable ejection and replacement in 2018 or thereabouts, with ‘sharpening its focus’ on things that won’t upset the horses.
Naughty Wheato!
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