The FSA has banned six former directors of Chiyoda Fire and Marine Insurance Company Europe (CE) for their role in distorting the financial results of CE during 1999 and 2000.
The FSA said all six failed to act with honesty and integrity as directors of CE. "Their conduct demonstrated a fundamental lack of fitness and propriety and represented a risk to confidence in the financial system."
CE was currently known as Aioi Insurance Company of Europe (AE), said the FSA.
This was the first such action taken in relation to senior management of an insurance company, said the FSA.
Yoshiaki Yamazaki, Hiroshi Okazaki and Robert McKibbin have been banned from performing any functions in relation to any regulated activity carried on by any authorised person, the FSA said.
Kazuhide Oda, Toru Morota and David Titterington have been prohibited from performing any function involving the exercise of management authority over any other person in relation to any regulated activity carried on by any authorised person.
All six were at varying times directors of CE, a subsidiary of Japanese insurance company Chiyoda Fire and Marine Insurance Company (CJ), said the FSA.
It said the executive directors of CE were requested to find means of improving CE's 1999 performance. The collective actions of these individuals resulted in an apparent reduction of CE's losses from £34m to £4m in 1999.
FSA director of enforcement Andrew Procter said: "Fiddling the figures reported to the FSA or those declared in company accounts has the potential to undermine regulation and destroy confidence in markets.
"This is why we think that only the very strongest of the sanctions available to us is appropriate in these circumstances.
"All of these individuals abused their positions and as such they are not fit and proper to work again in senior positions in the UK insurance market."
