UK 17:14 Friday, 23 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
This week’s disclosures by Quindell (QPP) have shown conclusively that the gargantuan body of work which started back in April 2013 by ourselves and colleagues at ShareProphets was on the button. Along the way there were allegations of securities fraud, accounting fraud, VAT fraud, insider dealing, market abuse in what is simply a staggering litany of revelations. The evidence was passed to the FCA, AIM Regulation, the SFO and others in a series of submissions going back to April 2014. Yet the FCA and AIM Regulation utterly failed to act on the evidence handed over. The FCA took until June of this year to open an investigation – we rather suspect because of a me-too response, once it was known that the SFO was involved and that the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) had been looking at Quindell. AIM has yet to confirm any actions beyond a spot of belated flag-waving.
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Comments
turbograndad
Tom/Nigel
He’s part of the crony phony bullshitting Tory government free market cockup bollocks we are in.
Go shave your heads.
This does not deminish the great work you do, but having to make them have to see it does I’m afraid.
J P Spaghetti
Perhaps it would be a progressive step too for the LSE to be required to fund the FCA, rather than the very businesses it’s supposed to regulate (surely that’s ultimately a vested interest almost by definition). Then, the more investigative work the FCA needs to conduct, the greater the end of year bill to the LSE. Just might cause them to take AIM regulations and listing rules more seriously. Perhaps not – haven’t really thought it through and it may be flawed!
nigel somerville
Jp – all very well, but surely better to make the miscreants pay for it, rather than the ones which behave?
J P Spaghetti
True Nigel, but surely as things stand the ones which behave are paying for the illusion of regulation already but just doing so directly. I accept, however, that in the business world an unexpected increase in the overheads of a company that has behaved in the form of a higher bill resulting from the increased investigatory activity of others would not only be unfair but possibly crippling. I did say I hadn’t thought it through!
In any event, I also accept that the context here is not of the status quo but of the situation you propose which would undoubtedly be an improvement in principle. I say in principle because although funding the cost of the dedicated unit you mention in 4) from fines would be ideal if there is sufficient contravention, without some core funding in place the unit’s very existence would eventually become threatened and the less sustainable this would be the more successful it is (no fines – no funding, but sorry if you were getting at this with “by being given a material amount of fines levied”). This might even produce a sort of commission-only sales situation in which the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction resulting in restrictively zealous intervention, and might itself precipitate exotic forms of corruption. Maybe I’m just being green, though, in contemplating a scenario in which corruption would ever be discouraged so effectively where big money is concerned!
Perhaps there’s an analogy to be drawn between this and our funding of the police and the judiciary in that a condition of citizenship is that we all fund them through our taxes irrespective of whether or not we break the law (though – perversely – if we do there’s a good chance we’ll make a net contribution which is lower!). The bottom line remains, of course, that if the FCA just did what it is mandated to do all would be fine and dandy.
Anyway, great work and here’s to a response that comprises more than lip service from Sajid Javid.
PS I realise that the FCA is tasked with regulating all manner of financial entities not just listed companies so I should have specified the regulation of listed companies only in my first post here.
PPS Was there a fifth suggestion – perhaps the paragraph beginning “As an example” (I’m seeing “4)” then “6)”)?