Edmund Rowland was hit with a financial services ban and his family’s Banque Havilland SA fined £10 million ($12.6 million) by the UK for “improper advice” it gave pushing “manipulative trading strategies” in Qatar.
(Bloomberg) — Edmund Rowland was hit with a financial services ban and his family’s Banque Havilland SA fined £10 million ($12.6 million) by the UK for “improper advice” it gave pushing “manipulative trading strategies” in Qatar.
Rowland, the son of Conservative Party donor David Rowland, failed to act with integrity over a plot to undermine the Qatari financial system in the fall of 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority said Friday. He was also fined £352,000.
Luxembourg-based Banque Havilland pushed a presentation aimed at devaluing the Qatari riyal to the country’s rivals after a Saudi Arabia-led coalition severed diplomatic ties and handed a copy to an official of an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, according to the watchdog.
“Banque Havilland’s conduct actively encouraged the commission of financial crime, providing ideas for manipulative trading to someone it saw as having the political motivation to be potentially interested in such ideas,” said Therese Chambers, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight.
Rowland, who was chief executive officer of Banque Havilland’s London branch, and the bank have appealed the finding to the UK’s Upper Tribunal, as has Vladimir Bolelyy, a former employee who worked on the presentation censured by the FCA.
A senior branch manager David Weller was also fined and banned by the watchdog.
“I refute the FCA allegations in full,” Edmund Rowland said in an email on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the watchdog was set to censure him. “I am challenging them in the independent tribunal.”
Banque Havilland said the tribunal, an independent court, will review the matter.
“The bank is disappointed in the decision reached by the FCA and does not accept that it is directly liable for the actions of the individuals implicated in the criticized activity, who have long since left the bank,” a spokesperson said.
“The bank has taken measures to ensure that any consequences will not significantly affect the bank’s financial position,” the bank said.
(Updates with Banque Havilland’s response in final paragraphs.)
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