Financial Conduct Authority
Senior Managers and Certification Regime - FCA publishes Final Notice to director - 14 November 2022
The FCA has published a final notice addressed to Mr Ashkan Zahedian, alongside Vast Cars Limited as an interested party, following Mr Zahedian’s guilty plea to charges of grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon in May 2020.
Mr Zahedian was the sole director of an authorised consumer credit firm, Vast Cars Limited, and was approved by the FCA as a senior manager. Mr Zahedian has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment following his guilty plea. The FCA has removed his approval to perform the senior management function at Vast Cars Limited and imposed a prohibition order preventing him from working in financial services in the future.
Commenting on the Decision, Mark Steward, Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight emphasised:
“Those authorised to provide financial services are required to meet and maintain high standards of character, fitness and properness. These were serious, violent criminal offences reflecting on Mr Zahedian’s character and justifying the finding that he is not a person to be working in financial services. The FCA will continue to uphold high standards of character and conduct.”
FCA Final Notice of Ashkan Zahedian
Press release
Recent Cases
FCA v London Property Investments (UK) Ltd and others, [2022] EWHC 2862 (Ch), 11 November 2022
The FCA has obtained a judgment against London Property Investments (UK) Limited (LPI), NPI Holdings Limited, their director Daniel Stevens, and his father Anthony Kafetzis (the Defendants), for arranging mortgages without FCA authorisation and exploiting vulnerable customers.
The judgment found the Defendants arranged high-interest, unaffordable bridging loans for consumers at imminent risk of being evicted from their homes. They also registered restrictions against individuals’ properties, which were used by them to require those individuals to pay LPI substantial fees. In circumstances where these fees were not paid, the individuals could not sell or re-mortgage their property, trapping them in high interest bridging loans. The Defendants had also bought homes for less than their value from owners facing repossession, then rented the properties back to them.
The Defendants were not authorised to arrange mortgage contracts, nor sale and rent back agreements. LPI is now required to remove over twenty restrictions registered against several properties. A future trial will hear evidence from up to 88 further potentially affected individuals not party to the FCA’s original claim, and consider appropriate remedies.
The Financial Conduct Authority v London Property Investments (UK) Limited (trading as LPI Emergency Property Finance) & Ors [2022] EWHC 2862 (Ch)
