The compliant management of chaos

A major crisis has erupted at your financial services firm – how do you contain the situation and steer the firm out of its problems strengthened by the experience? Adam Samuel outlines the steps and issues involved.

Adam Samuel BA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted at adamsamuel@aol.com. His book, ‘Complaints and Compensation: a Guide to the Financial Services Market’, is available from his website, www.adamsamuel.com.

The roof has just fallen in. A sudden burst of customer complaints reveals that an adviser in the firm has stolen £1.5 million from a variety of vulnerable customers or that a prominent consultant has been putting clients into an unregulated collective investment scheme investing in a hospital complex in La Paz of which he is incidentally a director. A trading desk has just owned up to the presence of a £2 billion loss previously concealed in an internal account. More commonly, businesses fall apart a little more slowly. A decision to put a proper market value on stressed assets can make the business worth considerably less than previously thought. A sudden inability to renew borrowings on which the investment bank depends means that insufficient assets exist to pay the bills.