The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has banned Robert Shaw, the former director of the advisory firm of TailorMade Independent Ltd, from senior positions in financial services and fined him £165,000.

The FCA found that TMI had failed to assess the suitability of investments made through self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) for its customers and to identify and managed its conflicts of interests. It therefore ruled that Shaw had exposed his customers to risky investments without considering whether such products would meet their needs. In addition, he personally benefited from the sales of these products without revealing to customers the full extent of the benefits he was receiving.

TailorMade Alternative Investments (TMAI) was an unregulated introducer that referred clients to TMI and Shaw benefited from being its director and shareholder. The financial benefit he received created a conflict of interest with his duty to TMI’s customers to run the business compliantly. However, he made no adequate disclosure to customers. He compounded his error by failing to act when TMI’s external compliance consultants warned it of the need to consider and disclose conflicts of interest to customers.

TMI provided advice to customers on transferring their existing pension funds into unregulated investments such as green oil, biofuels, farmland and overseas property via SIPPs. Between 2010 and 2013, 1,661 customers invested £112,420,985 in these investment products, many of which were not typically permitted by their existing pension schemes. More than half of the affected customers invested in overseas property operated by the Harlequin group of companies, which the Serious Fraud Office is now investigating. TMI has ceased trading and is now in liquidation.