Lumiere committed serious ‘catalogue of failures’

The Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) has published its conclusions from its investigation into Lumiere Wealth Limited (Lumiere).

The regulator has found that the Jersey-based financial services business, which went into liquidation in October 2016, committed a serious catalogue of failures, breaching Jersey’s legal and regulatory regime.

The failures included Lumiere not providing clients with suitable investment advice, not adequately assessing the suitability of a particular fund it recommended to clients, not having adequate insurance cover in place, and giving the JFSC false and misleading information.

The JFSC first began investigating Lumiere in June 2016 after an on-site visit identified a number of significant concerns about how the company was conducting business. The investigation was put on hold from October 2016 while the criminal investigation and subsequent trial of the business’ managing director were concluded.

Martin Moloney, JFSC Director General, commented:

“The risk of fraudsters is constantly out there. I am very conscious that when they use a regulated business to defraud investors and deceive the regulator, by the time we catch them, investors’ money can be long gone. We need to be cautious; investors need to be cautious.

As we would do after any case of this magnitude, our next step is to see if there is anything we could have done better. We are doing this as part of a wider update of all our processes for granting licences to businesses.”

The investigation relates to Lumiere’s conduct during the period April 2015 up to June 2016.

The JFSC assisted Jersey law enforcement agencies in the criminal case against Lumiere’s former managing director: https://www.jerseylaw.je/judgments/unreported/Pages/[2018]JRC221.aspx