London-based SVS Securities has fallen into administration, with a regulatory investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority on the horizon. Staff from the accountancy firm of Leonard Curtis are acting as administrators.

The brokerage, which serviced high-net-worth individuals, had to comply with an order from the FCA to stop trading, with the regulator also barring it from disposing of its own or its clients’ assets. It has 95 employees, according to LinkedIn.

Acting on intelligence that it received about the assets in which SVS invested its clients’ money, the FCA "sent in a SWAT team" that found it to be operating in a seriously problematic way. The FCA has opened an investigation into the matter.

The directors considered the viability and solvency of SVS after the FCA took its action. They obtained advice about insolvency and resolved to place the firm in "special administration," a kind of insolvency procedure that HM Government first made available in 2011 in an attempt to improve the process by which investment banks can fail.

Julien Irving, Andrew Poxon and Alex Cadwallader of Leonard Curtis were appointed as 'joint' special administrators. They are receiving extremely high volumes of queries from creditors and clients and will therefore answer queries as soon as possible through updates on their website, which Leonard Curtis will update as further information becomes available.

SVS, was founded in 2003. It offered HNWs online execution-only and forex trading, along with traditional stockbroking. City AM reports that it "sold more than 24 million credits to Deutsche Bank over a 23-day period despite concerns about their legitimacy."

David Niven, a partner at the law firm of Pennington Manches Cooper who is investigating potential claims to recover losses for investors from the administration of SVS Securities, preferred not to comment on progress.