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Keydata founder Stewart Ford has told a judge that Financial Services Authority (FSA) staff who have read the company's legally private emails should be excluded from its investigation into the collapsed structured product provider, according to Bloomberg.
In November 2011 Keydata won its judicial review action against the regulator after the FSA obtained legally privileged emails between the company's lawyers and accountants in its probe into the structured products provider.
Ford's lawyers said at a hearing in London that the regulator should also hand over communications with other agencies which it sent the material to, including the Serious Fraud Office and the Insolvency Service in the UK, as well as financial regulators in Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, reported Bloomberg.
'We want to know who at the FSA has seen the material. We say those people should be taken off the case,' said Hodge Malek, one of the lawyers representing Ford (pictured).
The judicial review judgement did not mark the end of the regulator's investigation but it did see Judge Ian Burnett rule that e-mails sent by Ford and other directors to legal advisers were covered by the attorney-client privilege and improperly obtained by the FSA , and that it must disregard information obtained from the emails.
The FSA declined to comment on the matter.
Comments (10)
Can somebody send me a copy of these emails so I can get to the bottom of this?
Many thanks
17:39 on 21 February 2012
Er, aren't those who have read the emails *better* equipped to handle the case?
If Mr Ford thinks they have only seen a partial record then he could supply the bits they have not seen in order to give them a balanced view.
20:24 on 21 February 2012
Its hard to have a sympathy for Mr Ford.....................
08:47 on 22 February 2012
Quis custodes ipsos custodiet?
On the contrary it is hard not to sympathise in a situation where there appears to have been such a wholesale abuse of justice as evinced in this case.
Over the past few years I have read numerous excoriating examples of the "Star Chamber" privileges that Regulators enjoy up to and including their own review of complaints against them. In similar situations of abuse of process the Police are rightly reviled and held to scorn and, as a result, they must now conform to a punctilious arrest and search process to avoid the shame of watching the guilty go free for errors made.
I fear that our Law makers have created a monster that is now too powerful to rein in; it is , in effect, above the Law.
Keydata is a classic example of regulators and receivers addressing a soluble problem and ,between them, creating,an insoluble mess from which the only financial beneficiaries are themselves.
"Who will police the police themselves" indeed.
09:10 on 22 February 2012
In defence of Mr Ford - if the FSA have broken the laws on legally privileged information, he has the right to ask that any ongoing investigation is clearly based the law of thw land.
The FSA will also want to ensure the case is properly dealt with - as if it isn't, it would be pretty easy to overturn any judgement made.
For everyone else - we want it to be resolved as quickly and correctly as possible - as the FSA is spending our money on their investigation.....
.....as the longer it goes on - the more it will cost us.
09:13 on 22 February 2012
I have no idea what is going on but this is becoming a farce.
09:32 on 22 February 2012
Er, just changed my mind, I'm told there is more to this than meets the eye.
09:36 on 22 February 2012
Does this not show the biggest problem with Britiish justice. It concentrates to much on procedure and not trying to find out who isactually guilty of what.
09:42 on 22 February 2012
Paul
I agree that "we want it to be resolved as quickly and correctly as possible" but this has clearly not been the case. The ONLY real losers thus far have been the individual investors and this is true of other headline cases. Receivers never have an impulsion to hurry and it would seem that Regulators make pre-judgements and make a case to fit. We pay for the time and money expended on their case-making not on the original loss and, as a result, investors get pennies in the £ returned after an age whilst professionals pay the full invoice for the sheer cost of the maladroit investigations.
More recently we have witnessed the execution of a retail alternative asset class by the ill-judged and intemperate pronouncement of a senior regulator deploying language that would be more appropriate in a Sixth form debating chamber.
This may have been the final straw; aggrieved institutions affected by this outburst must surely seek redress beyond the "retirement" of the regulator responsible. Perhaps not; this is Britain now a byword for supine behaviour. We have the government we deserve because we simply bow our heads.
Shame on us...
09:46 on 22 February 2012
In view of the fact that a court of law has determined that the FSA has acted illegally, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for Mr Ford to call for certain restrictions on how the investigation is pursued from this point on. I imagine he will have taken legal advice before submitting his request to the judge and it'll be up to the judge to decide whether or not to grant this request.
10:40 on 22 February 2012
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