The Financial Conduct Authority has set out plans to take action against Hartley Pensions and an individual involved at the firm due to alleged withdrawals taken from customer pension funds.
Hartley was a self-invested personal pension operator, which went into administration in July 2022. The FCA alleges that Hartley provided it with false and misleading information and improperly withdrew and invested substantial amounts of customers’ pension funds, without their consent, to benefit an individual at the firm.
The FCA alleges that the individual “dishonestly used the pension funds” and made false representations to obtain money for a company that they owned. They then misled the FCA to conceal this misconduct.
The information comes from an issued warning notices, which is not the FCA’s final decisions, and there is a right by Hartley Pensions to make representations to the Regulatory Decisions Committee.