Judicial reviews and the FOS

A cluster of judicial reviews have clarified the scope and extent of recourse to the courts against Ombudsman decisions, along with other key compliance concerns. Adam Samuel unpacks the judgments.

Adam SamuelBA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted atadamsamuel@aol.com.You can purchase Adam's latest book 'Compliance - a Short Book' at www.amazon.co.uk/Compliance-Short-Book-Adam-Samuel-ebook/dp/B0CTRYBN1J/.For links to where you can buy the second edition of 'Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation', seewww.adamsamuel.com/writing.

April, May and June this year each brought us a high-class judicial review case about the Financial Ombudsman Service: iDealing.com Ltd, [1] Options UK Personal Pensions LLP [2] and Linear Investments Ltd. [3] All three in quite different ways cover the scope or extent of judicial review of decisions made by the FOS. One also deals with the rules for creating elective professional clients as well as eligible complainants, contributory negligence and damages ( Linear). Another covers the vexed issue of how the FOS has to handle legal issues and the Financial Conduct Authority Principles ( Options UK). The third and most exotic by far ( iDealing) treats the handling of complaints against the Ombudsman and decisions of its Independent Assessor.