In 2016 the UK's Financial Conduct Authority decided to 'partially' prohibit Andrew Tinney, the global chief operating officer of Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, from carrying out any controlled function again. It has now been stopped from doing so after a three-year legal wrangle.

Tinney performed the CF29 (Significant Management) controlled function between May 2010 and December 2012, overseeing Barclays Wealth’s global technology, operations and infrastructure activities, plus its compliance function. He commissioned a consultancy to produce a 'culture audit' of Barclays Wealth America (which said that BWA had a 'high risk' culture that was actively hostile to compliance) but then suppressed it, in breach of "statement of principle" 1 in the part of the FCA's rulebook that deals with approved persons (APER).

In 2016 the FCA accused Tinney of misconduct and said that he had acted without integrity in breach of APER 1, commenting that he was not a fit and proper person to perform controlled functions. Its Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC) decided to censure him publicly and to issue a partial prohibition to stop him from working in financial services under certain circumstances. About a fortnight ago the Upper Tribunal forbade the partial ban, which had been in the offing for three years pending Tinney's appeal, with the following words.

"Ms Hanif [counsel, instructed by Withers, acting for Tinney] submitted that, in contrast to a penalty, the primary purpose of a prohibition is to protect the public not to punish the individual and Mr Tinney does not pose any risk to consumers  or the market, such that he should never be permitted to practice again in a senior function. Indeed, no consumers were harmed by his failings in respect of the second and third draft of the BNote. We accept this submission.

"We also accept that a considerable period of time has elapsed since the events of 2012 and since the RDC’s decision to make a partial prohibition order in July 2016. We accept that Mr Tinney has been reflecting on his conduct in that time and that his remorse is genuine. It was also not disputed that, apart from the events described in this decision, Mr Tinney has a blameless disciplinary record."

The much-mentioned ‘BNote’ was a note that Tinney wrote for the CEO of Barclays Wealth, a Mr B, to send to Barclays’ senior managers in response to an anonymous email that alleged that “a [Barclays] Wealth cultural audit report” had been suppressed. The tribunal found that Tinney was "reckless as to whether the note might give the impression that the GenVen Document [the report] had never existed and, in doing so, he acted without integrity in breach of APER 1."