FCA bans senior manager for lack of honesty and integrity

Key dates

2020-11-13

The High Court disqualified Howard Roland Duckett from acting as a company director for 10 years under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

2020-12-04

The 10-year company-director disqualification took effect and is stated to run until 2030-12-04.

2025-11-20

The FCA identified this date in consumer communications as the point after which payments requested by Beauforce should be reported; the firm was restricted from regulated activities and ordered to stop accepting consumer money.

2026-08-18

The FCA announced the prohibition of Howard Roland Duckett from performing functions in relation to regulated activities.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to review fitness-and-propriety checks for current and prospective senior managers, including searches for director disqualifications, litigation findings, insolvency events, and other adverse information.
• Firms should consider confirming that senior managers have disclosed all matters relevant to their approval and that changes affecting their fitness, propriety, or ability to perform an SMF are escalated and notified to the FCA where required.
• Firms should consider testing compliance with FCA Principle 11, COCON 2.2.4R, and SUP 10C.14.18R in relation to open, cooperative, and timely dealings with the FCA and notification of disqualifications or other relevant changes.
• Boards and compliance functions may wish to assess whether regulatory records, management-accountability maps, company-director registers, and evidence supporting senior-manager attestations are complete, consistent, and independently verifiable.
• Consumer-credit firms should consider reviewing controls over debt-management client payments, client-money safeguarding, communications, and contingency arrangements for transferring customers if permissions are restricted or withdrawn.
• Firms should consider screening current staff and approved persons against the FCA Financial Services Register and relevant Companies House director-disqualification information before appointment and periodically thereafter.
• Compliance teams may wish to use the case in senior-manager and conduct-risk training to reinforce that misleading the FCA or relying on fabricated information can independently support prohibition, even where the underlying misconduct occurred at an unrelated company.

What changed

The FCA made an individual prohibition order under section 56 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and withdrew Duckett’s approval to perform the SMF3 Executive Director and SMF16 Compliance Oversight functions under section 63 of that Act. This is an enforcement outcome against a specific individual rather than a new generally applicable rule. The underlying conduct included inadequate company records, repeated lies and reliance on fabricated evidence in High Court proceedings, and failure to notify the FCA of a director disqualification. The related Beauforce action restricted the firm from carrying out regulated debt advice and debt-management services, prohibited it from accepting further consumer payments, and required money held in its bank accounts to be returned.

Who is affected

• FCA-authorised consumer credit firms providing regulated debt advice or debt-management services
• FCA-authorised firms employing or seeking approval for senior management function holders
• Approved persons and senior managers subject to FCA fitness and propriety assessment
• Firms with regulatory notification, governance, compliance oversight, or client-money responsibilities

Related regulations

• Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, section 56
• Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, section 63
• Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, section 6
• FCA Principle 11
• FCA COCON 2.2.4R
• FCA SUP 10C.14.18R