The UK’s financial watchdog is moving to censure the son of a Conservative Party donor and his family’s private bank following an investigation into its alleged role in an attempt to undermine the Qatari financial system.
(Bloomberg) — The UK’s financial watchdog is moving to censure the son of a Conservative Party donor and his family’s private bank following an investigation into its alleged role in an attempt to undermine the Qatari financial system.
A court filing shows the Financial Conduct Authority has completed its investigation and found against Edmund Rowland and Banque Havilland SA. It was investigating the bank’s alleged role in a financial attack against Qatar in the fall of 2017.
Rowland and Banque Havilland have appealed the finding to the UK’s Upper Tribunal, according to the newly published court register.
“I refute the FCA allegations in full,” Edmund Rowland said in an email. “I am challenging them in the independent tribunal.”
The FCA said last year the Luxembourg-based private bank gave “improper advice” in a presentation that set out “manipulative trading practices aimed at creating a false, or misleading, impression as to the market in or the price of Qatari bonds.”
Another applicant to the tribunal is Edmund’s father David Rowland, a multimillionaire businessman who formed Banque Havilland in 2009 out of the remains of defunct Icelandic lender Kaupthing’s Luxembourg unit. He has no official role at the bank — unlike his son — and isn’t named in the FCA notice.
“I have never been under investigation by the FCA, nor interviewed by them, there has been no finding against me and I am not subject to censure by the FCA,” David Rowland said in an email. “I am only a third party in the current proceedings.”
The FCA, which has the power to ban and fine individuals, declined to comment beyond the warning notice. A spokesman for Banque Havilland, which has separately acted as a private lender to Prince Andrew, declined to comment.
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In a now-settled UK lawsuit, Banque Havilland was accused of orchestrating a financial attack with the aim of destabilizing the riyal. Havilland told the court at the time that it was cooperating with the UK regulator. The presentation prepared for the chief executive officer of a United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund detailed an attempt to deplete Qatar’s reserves and damage its ability to host the soccer World Cup in 2022, Qatar alleged.
Qatar said it needed to make a “massive fiscal intervention,” pouring money into the economy at the same time as its neighbors blockaded the gas-rich nation. The central bank liquidated assets and injected $1.6 billion while the Qatar Investment Authority deposited some $20 billion with domestic banks.
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