The FCA has provisionally fined Carlos Fuenmayor, chief executive of emerging markets specialist bank BancTrust, £99,600 for failing to disclose three separate matters to the FCA.
Mr Fuenmayor has referred the Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal to have the decision reviewed. Until the tribunal decides on the review the decision is provisional.
BancTrust & Co is a London-based investment bank focused on emerging markets. It offers corporate and investment banking, securities dealing and financing, as well as investment research products. Clients include emerging markets companies, financial institutions, institutional investors and the public sector.
The FCA said that Mr Fuenmayor failed, until December 2021, to inform the regulator, including in application forms that he submitted on behalf of BancTrust, that he had been placed under investigation by the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in December 2017 and was sanctioned by the authority in June 2019.
He also failed to disclose that, shortly before an inspection in November 2019, the National Financial Intelligence Unit of Venezuela had frozen his local currency bank accounts, as well as those of his Venezuelan companies and their directors, the FCA said.
The watchdog said the alleged failure to disclose the issues meant that the FCA did not have the opportunity to fully consider Mr Fuenmayor’s fitness and propriety or seek further information.
Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Disclosing information which we reasonably expect, and doing it promptly, is key to maintaining trust in financial services and supporting a strong market that works well for consumers.”