Adams v Options UK – the Court of Appeal reaches the right answer

Overturning a High Court decision, theappellate court has ruled for a victim of ‘pensionliberation’ who invested in (now probably worthless) storage facility leasesheld within a SIPP. The case turned around whether the SIPP contract was madedue to regulated activity by an unauthorised third party, reports Adam Samuel.

Adam SamuelBALLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may becontacted atadamsamuel@aol.com.For links to where you can buy thesecond edition of ‘Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation’,see www.adamsamuel.com/book.

Amid the extraordinary flowering of fiveimportant financial services cases decided by the English courts between 25March and 16 April is an old friend: Adams v Options UK Personal Pensions.Last year, we looked at the horrific decision of JudgeDight sitting as a deputy High Court judge in this case. Giving judgment twoyears after the hearing, the judge rejected the claimant’s arguments that aSelf-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) provider should be responsible for lossescaused by a pension transfer designed to facilitate the investment by anindebted customer in storage pods located in Blackburn. In a unanimousdecision rendered less than a month after the hearing, the Court of Appealreversed the decision, [1] giving hope to huge numbers of customers stuck in asimilar situation.