Welcome to the UKGI weekly regulation update service for Aviva ABC brokers

Context

The FCA has banned a Senior Manager, Howard Roland Duckett, from working in financial services due to a serious lack of honesty and integrity.  Mr Duckett was a senior manager at Beauforce Corporation Limited, a debt management firm, and was approved by the FCA to perform the SMF3 (Executive Director) and SMF16 (Compliance Oversight) senior management functions. The High Court has disqualified Mr Duckett from acting as a company director for 10 years.

Key points to note and next actions

• The High Court found that Mr Duckett had failed to maintain adequate records while he was a Director of an unrelated company.
• The Court also found that Mr Duckett repeatedly lied and attempted to rely on fabricated evidence to distance himself from the company and deny that he was a director. This included falsely claiming that a fictitious individual was responsible for running the business.
• The FCA stated that Mr Duckett constructed an elaborate fiction in his attempt to avoid disqualification, and failed to tell the FCA about his disqualification.
• The FCA added that Mr Duckett “deserves to be banned from the industry”.
• In November 2025, the FCA restricted Beauforce Corporation Limited from carrying out any regulated activities. This means it cannot provide regulated debt advice or debt management services to consumers. The FCA also ordered the firm to stop accepting money from consumers and return any money held in its bank accounts.