Bailey's response to 4 parliamentary questions 22/08/19 (COL

Well done for spotting these answers elsee (keep your eyes peeled for some more) 
As regular readers of my Col posts will know Lord Myners has been very good in asking questions on behalf of Col investors.
Unfortunately he has run up against the same brick walls built by the FCA and the Treasury as we as a group have.

We will just keep chipping away ......

That letter was dated last August ,,,,,we were told from the last creditors meeting they would send out a breakdown of each persons loans when feasible....ye and their are fairies at the bottom of the garden...load of tosh 

A good question that has several answers to it.

If the answers said 'yes we made serious mistakes, hands up, ex gratia payments will be made' that would be wonderful .......... but we all know that won't happen.

Whilst Lord Myners received the same responses that I and others have received the difference is that it was Lord Myners asking the questions not a 'dancing duck'. Whilst I and the 'lings' may have been a thorn in the side of the FCA for the past 2 years we are just 'members of the public' and carry little weight in the big scheme of things.

Don't ask me how I know but interventions such as those by Lord Myners and MPs are being recorded at the FCA. If the FCA didn't place importance in their interventions they would not be recording the interventions.

As this thread shows the questions and responses are now preserved in Parliamentary history and are open for all to see. The questions contain detail that is contained on FOIs that the FCA have not yet (and probably won't) publish on their disclosure log. This has proved to be an effective cap on me publishing everything I know openly here .... but letters between constituents and their MPs are a different matter. 

Sorry for the misunderstanding, yes you have read my comment in a way that I didn't intend.

The point I was making is that it would have been wonderful if the FCA had said to Lord Myners 'yes we made serious mistakes, hands up, ex gratia payments will be made' ....... but we know an admission such as that will never be forthcoming from the FCA.

The aim since day one has been (and remains) ex gratia payments from the FCA for their failures. 

The fact that two years of digging has strengthened investors positions just means more of a headache for the FCA.
Initially the problem appeared to be simply an incorrect entry on the IP register .....then it transpired that the FCA allowed millions to be invested even when they knew Col was trading without permissions (failing in their basic duty of protecting the public) ..... then that basic checks were not made when Col made their Part 4A application (Col should not have been allowed to trade, investors should never have seen the site).  The list goes on.

Even with this weight of 'evidence of failure' against them the FCA will not 'put their hands up', the process will continue to the bitter end.  In cases such as this the process will involve the Complaints Commissioner but his adjudication cannot take place until the earlier parts of the process have been completed.  In this case the FCAs investigation (and possibly any Court cases) are putting on hold the Complaints Commissioners intervention.

Frustrating though it may be I do respect the need for the FCA to investigate Col (and their interactions with Col directors and advisers), what the outcome will be I have no idea (have my suspicions), only time will tell.
That said we have been very careful to ensure that when identifying FCA failures the failure cannot be tempered/influenced by the outcome of the investigation.

For example the IP register entry that we saw could be said to be the result of 'criminal activity' (debatable) but that is not the FCAs failure, their failure was setting up their systems to allow changes to be made without anticipating that somebody might decide to exploit this weakness.

With the Part 4A application the applications were not subject to basic checks, they were accepted on trust.  It is entirely predictable that this weakness in the system would be exploited but the FCA did not anticipate this.  This is their failure.

As the two examples above show, the failures rest with the FCA and are of their making.  The investigation may show (among many things) how the system was exploited (it was very easy to do) but it was the FCA who enabled all of this to take place. 

Never forget that one of the FCAs core purposes (laid down by Parliament) is the 'protect consumers', in the case of Col the FCAs processes (and judgement at times) failed spectacularly to fulfill this requirement.