The Legal & General Tribunal decision: analysing the entrails

18 January 2005 was a red-letter day for consumer financial services compliance. The Financial Services and Markets Tribunal’s (FSMT) decision on Legal and General’s challenge to its fine by the FSA for endowment misselling represented the first occasion when the Tribunal has expressed its views on the type of compliance issues that affect vast numbers of consumers. Adam Samuel studies the ruling and reflects on the ramifications.

Adam Samuel BA LLM MSFA MAQ, compliance and complaint handling consultant and trainer, can be contacted on tel 020 7586 1938; email AdamSamuel@aol.com, website www.adamsamuel.co.uk

The messages which the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal sent were complex, mixed, informative and sometimes simply wrong. It has left the regulator to review its processes for when it seeks to discipline a large firm for misselling. It needs to limit the charges to those that it can make stick in front of the Tribunal or change its investigative methods to ensure that it never finds the result of one of its reviews essentially rejected when independent scrutiny is applied to its work.