FCA decides to fine Carlos Ricardo Fuenmayor £99,600 for disclosure failures

Mr Fuenmayor has referred his Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal where he and the FCA will present their cases. Any findings in the Decision Notice are therefore provisional and reflect the FCA’s belief as to what occurred and how it considers his behaviour should be characterised.

The FCA has decided to fine Carlos Fuenmayor, the Chief Executive of BancTrust, £99,600 for failing to disclose 3 separate matters to the FCA.

Mr Fuenmayor failed, until December 2021, to tell the FCA, 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 then sanctioned by them 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 failure to disclose these 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.'