FSA hires advisers from raft of recently fined firms

26 November 2009 10:03 am | By Leah Milner

The appointment is one of five senior advisers the FSA has appointed to work on governance and authorisation under its new intensive supervision of significant influence functions within firms. They include an adviser to recently-fined UBS, a director of Carphone Warehouse, which was fined by the FSA in 2006, and an adviser to Morgan Stanley, which was fined earlier this year.

Marshall joined Nomura as chairman in 2004 and remains in the role. The failings identified by the FSA took place between January and July 2008.

The FSA has also appointed Sir David Scholey as one of its new team of senior advisers, who is also an adviser to UBS which was fined £8m earlier this month for systems and controls failings which enabled unauthorised trades to take place and losses to be attributed to customer accounts. Scholey is also a former member of the court of the Bank of England.

Sir Brian Pitman is another of the FSA’s new senior advisers. He has been senior independent director of Carphone Warehouse Group since 2001, which was fined £245,000 by the FSA in 2006 for not treating customers fairly in its sales of phone insurance. He is also senior adviser at Morgan Stanley. The investment bank was fined £1.4m in May this year for systems and controls failings. He was chief executive of Lloyds in 1983 and became chairman in 1997, retiring in 2001.

The new advisers are to join the FSA’s significant influence function interview panels to offer guidance on approving candidates, although final decisions will be made by FSA directors.

The other senior advisers appointed are Baroness Hogg and Sir Dominic Cadbury.

Baroness Hogg is non-executive chairman of 3i Group, senior independent director of BG Group, non-executive director of Cadbury and deputy chair of the Financial Reporting Council

Sir Dominic Cadbury held the position of non-executive chairman of Misys from 2006 to 2009, and prior to that was chief executive and then chairman of Cadbury Schweppes.

FSA chief executive Hector Sants says: “These new advisers have extensive experience acting on the boards of major companies and in senior policy positions and will bring valuable insight to the work the FSA is pursuing on governance.

“In adding this board expertise to our SIF interview panel, we can continue to ensure those taking up top jobs are the right calibre to lead and challenge the management of the UK’s top firms.”

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