Former CFO's £6.6m Employment Tribunal claim begins (L)

CEO: Lendy was "in chaos…I found it a bit overwhelming", tribunal hears on 4th day

Coverage of this trial has been supported by donations to the Cheese Fund.  


The full report of todays hearing reveals:

That consultant Charles Bellringer described one decision as a “an appalling mistake to make and I’m not surprised the FCA were furious“

That the culture at Lendy was said to include “shouting and criticising the staff [which] creates a fairly toxic atmosphere for anyone to work in.“

Mr Brooke told O’Connor: “I wish you hadn’t ever come near Lendy so you hadn’t had to have gone through this massive s**t storm“

The context behind Mr O’Connor’s assertion that he “always wanted to be the towel boy in the ladies gym [but] you had to pretend to be gay to get the gig“

O’Connor “was responsible for knowingly misleading both the FCA and investors” tribunal hears on 5th day

Coverage of this trial has been supported by donations to the Cheese Fund.

Today the tribunal heard:

How it’s said Mr O’Connor lied to investors, the FCA and the tribunal

How seven-months-before Lendy entered Administration “Mr Brooke had apparently “estimated the value of his shares at between £150 million and £360 million”"

That Mr O’Connor discovered he “posed the most significant threat to [Liam Brooke’s] interests that he had faced to date – which threatened to scupper the carefully cultivated process for extracting his investment in [Lendy]“

Thieves trying to rob thieves, except all the money comes from the public that were reassured by the FCA! By the way, where are the FCA?

And it's a shame we can't use the evidence to build a future criminal case against the FCA for giving Lendy full approval!

Did internal politics and a culture of confusion at the FCA fail P2P investors?
Some staff in the FCA did want to refuse to authorise...See the internal FCA e-mail dated January 2017:

"The overall conclusion was that we all agree that PtP often does not provide a good proposition to both borrowers and retail investors, but the bar for rejecting applications is too high. EMO [Enforcement and Market Oversight] Legal basically advises against rejecting any of them given that we cannot substantiate that the business models are not sustainable

It looks like legalese supersedes our internal risk views which as a risk manager I find hard to accept (I am surprised about the burden of proof apparently being on our side)."

Remind me what job did Sigismund Walker do and what was he particularly alarmed about before he states he was unfairly dismissed from the fca ? 

Yes and aiui he also raised concerns with the higher echelons about the risk of complete capital loss for P2P investors and worries that the market was not working to create a safe space for consumers.