In brief
- The FCA has withdrawn Howard Roland Duckett’s senior management approvals and banned him from performing any regulated role after finding a serious lack of honesty and integrity.
- The decision followed High Court findings that Mr Duckett repeatedly lied under oath and relied on fabricated evidence during proceedings resulting in a 10-year director disqualification. He also failed to notify the FCA of his disqualification.
- The case highlights the FCA’s reliance on findings in civil proceedings when assessing fitness and propriety, the limited scope to contest those findings without genuinely new evidence, and the importance of candour with the regulator.
Overview
On 17 August 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") issued a Final Notice against Howard Roland Duckett, in which they:
- Withdrew the approval given to Mr Duckett to perform senior management functions, SMF3 (Executive Director) and SMF16 (Compliance Oversight); and
- Made an Order prohibiting Mr Duckett from performing any regulated role.
The Final Notice followed Mr Duckett's reference of the matter to the Upper Tribunal which was subsequently struck out on 2 October 2025.
Background
From 20 December 2017, Mr Duckett had been an approved person at Beauforce Corporation Limited ("Beauforce"). He initially held the CF1 (Director) and CF10 (Compliance Oversight) controlled functions, and from 9 December 2019 held the SMF3 (Executive Director) and SMF16 (Compliance Oversight) senior management functions.
On 13 November 2020, the High Court issued a Disqualification Order against Mr Duckett, which prohibited him from being a director or in any way, whether directly or indirectly, from being concerned with or taking part in the management of a company for a period of 10 years. This disqualification was effective from 4 December 2020.
The Order was made on the following grounds:
- Whilst a de facto director of Beauforce, Mr Duckett failed to ensure that the company maintained and preserved adequate accounting records;
- A strong suspicion arose that the company's activities were in furtherance of VAT fraud, and Mr Duckett's conduct had inhibited the investigation of substantive matters of fraud and misfeasance; and
- Mr Duckett had given false evidence and had lied under oath during the disqualification proceedings, in an attempt to distance himself from the company and deny he was a director.
The Disqualification Proceedings
What makes this notice particularly striking is the extent to which the Court found Mr Duckett had lied under oath and relied on fabricated evidence in an attempt to distance himself from the company. Central to his defence was the existence of an "Individual A", whom Mr Duckett repeatedly claimed was the person actually running the company's business. The Court rejected this account entirely, finding that Individual A was fictitious and that Mr Duckett was, in fact, the individual with real power and influence over the company.
As part of his defence, Mr Duckett had falsely asserted that:
- All emails sent from the company's email account were sent by Individual A, which included emails sent to HMRC on 21 November 2016 with the signatures "Howard" and "H Duckett", and that Individual A was impersonating Mr Duckett; and
- Invoices regarding payments made to him by the company were payments for consultancy and administration services, when in actual fact the invoices were fabricated after the fact as a way for Mr Duckett to justify receiving monies from a company he alleged he was not involved with.
Mr Duckett also gave an "improvised concoction" of an explanation for one of the fabricated invoices and gave false evidence attempting to justify certain conduct as having been carried out at the direction of another director.
In addition to lying under oath and fabricating evidence, Mr Duckett failed to disclose the fact that he had been disqualified as a director to the FCA as required pursuant to FCA Code of Conduct ("COCON") 2.2.4R.
The FCA's Decision
The FCA found that in light of Mr Duckett's conduct – namely that he lied under oath repeatedly, was found to have fabricated evidence and failed to notify the FCA of his disqualification – that he fell foul of the expectations set out under the FCA's Fit and Proper Test ("FIT"). In applying FIT 1.3.1BG, the FCA found that Mr Duckett demonstrated a clear and serious lack of honesty, integrity and reputation.
Mr Duckett made representations in response to the FCA's Warning Notice, arguing among other things that the disqualification proceedings were regulatory rather than criminal in nature, that the underlying HMRC investigation was incomplete, that he had never been formally appointed a director and had acted only as an external adviser, and that a referee's letter supported the existence of Individual A. The FCA rejected each of these arguments.
The FCA therefore concluded that Mr Duckett was not fit and proper.
Comment
The notice illustrates how far the FCA is prepared to rely on findings from wholly unrelated civil proceedings when assessing fitness and propriety. The Court's findings that Mr Duckett lied under oath and relied on a fictitious business partner to distance himself from the company were treated by the FCA as the basis for their conclusion that he lacked honesty and integrity.
It also shows the limited traction that representations seeking to contest the Court's factual findings are likely to gain, in the absence of any genuinely new evidence. The FCA found that the referee's letter that Mr Duckett relied on added nothing beyond what the Court had already considered and rejected.
Finally, the notice serves as a further reminder that the FCA takes very seriously the obligation on individuals to report relevant information to the regulator where required under COCON. The FCA has demonstrated on numerous occasions in recent years its willingness to take action against individuals for a lack of candour with the regulator – Frensham being the highest-profile example. In Mr Duckett's case, his failure to notify the FCA of his disqualification was relied upon alongside the substantive findings in concluding that it was appropriate to withdraw his approvals. This case acts as a further warning that being open and transparent with the regulator is a non-negotiable and a failure to do so goes to the core of the FCA's expectations that individuals who wish to undertake regulated roles must conduct themselves with honesty and integrity.