FCA fines and enforcement actions in 2022

The FCA found that Metro Bank Plc failed to comply with Listing Rule 1.3.3 (which requires that misleading information must not be published) in an announcement dated 24 October 2018. The FCA decided to impose a financial penalty on 10 November 2022 and issued its Final Notice on 8 December 2022; Metro Bank did not refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal. The regulator’s Final Notice is published on the FCA website.

The FCA imposed a fine of £531,600 on Sigma Broking Limited in a Final Notice dated 4 October 2022 for failing to submit required reports: 56,000 contracts-for-difference (CFD) transaction reports and 97 suspicious-activity reports. The action was taken by the Financial Conduct Authority and is recorded on the FCA register. The FCA register excerpt and Final Notice record the penalty; the provided register entry does not mention any customer redress, a settlement discount, or an appeal.

In 2022 the FCA decided to fine Barclays a total of £50 million for failing to tell the market about side arrangements with Qatari investors during its two emergency capital raisings in June and October 2008, at the height of the financial crisis. Barclays had agreed to pay a Qatari entity £322 million under two "advisory" agreements that were really the price of the Qataris' investment, and the FCA found its conduct in the October 2008 fundraising was reckless and lacked integrity, breaching the Listing Rules that require companies to give investors accurate information. Barclays referred the decision to the Upper Tribunal, but in November 2024 it withdrew that challenge to draw a line under the 16-year-old matter; the FCA then issued final notices imposing a reduced penalty of £40 million, while noting that Barclays does not accept the findings.

On 19 August 2022 the FCA fined Citigroup Global Markets Limited £12,553,800 for failures in its market‑abuse surveillance. The FCA found CGML breached Principle 2 (which requires firms to conduct business with due skill, care and diligence) between 2 November 2015 and 18 January 2018, and breached Article 16(2) of the Market Abuse Regulation (which requires firms to establish and maintain effective arrangements, systems and procedures to detect and report suspicious orders and transactions) between 3 July 2016 and 18 January 2018. The FCA set out its findings and the penalty in a Final Notice published on its website.

The FCA fined Barclays Bank £783,800 in February 2022 for weak oversight of its business customer Premier FX, a small payments firm for which Barclays was the sole UK banker. Premier FX collapsed in 2018 after the death of its sole director, when it emerged it had been taking deposits it was not authorised to take and had not kept client money separate, leaving 167 customers — mostly British expats in Spain and Portugal — with losses of just over £10 million. The FCA found Barclays failed to act with due skill, care and diligence: it did not check that Premier FX's real activity matched what it expected, and it missed signs that the firm's internal controls were deficient. Barclays settled early for a 30% discount and voluntarily paid £10,076,943.75 so that every customer with an accepted claim got all their money back.