North west firm issued with final notice

Pensions Insight

The FSA has banned Manchester-based broker Commercial Insurance Services (M/CR) Ltd.

John Kirby of the FSA’s enforcement and financial crime divisoin issued a final notice this week, cancelling the Part IV insurance intermediation permission of CIS, which was located at 22 Landsdowne Road, Manchester M8 5SH.

In a supervisory notice, issued in July this year, the FSA restricted CIS’ activities. The watchdog issued this earlier notice on the grounds that CIS lacked a FSA approved individual to perform the controlled function of director. CIS’ then sole approved director Arthur Kirk was prohibited by the FSA from performing any regulated activity in 2009.

The July notice also states that information supplied by CIS to the FSA indicates that it may have conducted business outside the scope of its permission. And it says that CIS failed to respond adequately to repeated requests from the FSA to provide information on its trading activities.  

The 2009 report says that Kirk “fell short of the standards required by the FSA’s fit and proper Test for approved persons” when he ran another business, a mortgage broker called Grosvenor.