The FCA placed Beaufort Securities Limited (BSL) and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services Limited (BACSL) into administration and Special Administration respectively on 1 March 2018, following an urgent application to Court. This was shortly after the US Department of Justice brought criminal charges against BSL (alongside other parties) for its alleged involvement in securities fraud and money laundering, and after the FCA had issued both firms with supervisory notices prohibiting them from carrying on any regulated activities.

Prior to this in 2016 the FCA placed restrictions on Beaufort Securities Limited in respect of regulated activity. Claims started to arise in respect of the Beaufort SIPP as it became clear that the high-risk investments within this SIPP were unsuitable for the investors who had been advised to transfer into it.

As with most cases of SIPP mis-selling, the claim for compensation is usually made against an Adviser (advised the transfer into the SIPP) for the regulated advice. However, a Discretionary Fund Manager (DFM) like Beaufort Securities Limited also has a regulated obligation and in a case upheld against Beaufort in 2017, the FOS said: ‘Even if there was some input from the IFA, Beaufort Securities accepts that its DFM had authority to make his own investment decisions.’