On 3 May 2019, the FCA announced that it had launched the Financial Services Regulatory Partners Phoenixing Group, in a bid to tackle the ongoing issue of phoenixing in financial services. Phoenixing in this context involves firms and individuals deliberately seeking to avoid their liabilities to consumers or poor conduct history by closing down firms – or resigning senior positions – only to re-emerge in a different legal entity.
Representatives of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Insolvency Service and Scotland’s Accountant in Bankruptcy joined the FCA to discuss approaches to tackling phoenixing and how they can work together more closely in the future by more effectively sharing data and intelligence on individuals and firms.