Community Trust ScoreVerified
The UK’s Upper Tribunal has backed the Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to permanently ban Richard Fenech and Heather Dunne from financial services. Both bans stand. The fines, though, got trimmed.
The case centers on pension transfer advice given between April 2015 and June 2017. Dunne, operating as Heather Dunne Independent Financial Adviser — known as HDIFA — recommended that 92% of her clients move out of defined benefit pension schemes during that period. Total transfers linked to her advice topped £126 million. The Tribunal found that a meaningful chunk of those transfers weren’t in the clients’ best interests. On top of that, both Dunne and Fenech submitted a backdated appointed representative agreement to the FCA — something the Tribunal called dishonest, full stop. Dunne also falsely claimed she’d been giving pension scheme advice before she actually had, and she failed to exercise the level of care her role demanded.
Fenech’s firm, Financial Solutions Midhurst Ltd (FSML), is where Dunne’s business was registered as an appointed representative.
How the Fines Got Recalculated
The FCA originally wanted bigger penalties. The Tribunal pushed back on that — not on the bans, but on the numbers. It found that 18% of Dunne’s clients received unsuitable advice, not the full book of business the FCA had initially flagged. That distinction matters a lot when calculating financial penalties. The recalibrated fine for Dunne came out at £41,230. Fenech’s penalty landed at £16,046. The Tribunal’s reasoning on Fenech was pretty specific: only the earnings he made from his direct involvement with Dunne should factor into his fine, not broader figures from FSML’s overall operations.
So the bans are total. The fines are reduced but still real.
It’s worth being clear about what the Tribunal didn’t change. Both individuals are out of financial services. The backdating finding stuck. The dishonesty findings stuck. The adjustment was purely about the financial math behind the penalties, not about the severity of what happened.
The Structure That Made It Possible
HDIFA wasn’t a standalone firm — it operated as an appointed representative of FSML. Fenech owned and ran FSML. That structure meant he had direct supervisory responsibility over Dunne’s advisory work, and the Tribunal found he didn’t exercise it properly. Not even close, really.
Appointed representative arrangements are pretty common in UK financial services. A smaller adviser or firm plugs into a larger, FCA-authorized firm’s regulatory permissions. The authorized firm — in this case FSML — takes on compliance responsibility for what the AR does. It’s a setup that can work well. But it can also create exactly the kind of oversight gap that appeared here. Fenech, as the principal, was supposed to be watching. The Tribunal found he wasn’t doing that job.
The FCA has been tightening its approach to appointed representative oversight for a while now. Defined benefit pension transfers are one of the areas where the regulator has been most aggressive, and for good reason. Moving out of a DB scheme is usually irreversible. Clients give up guaranteed income for life in exchange for a pot of cash. When advisers push clients toward transfers that aren’t suitable — or when they churn through transfers at the rate Dunne did, 92% of clients in two years — the damage can follow those clients for decades.
Both Dunne and Fenech have 14 days from the Tribunal’s decision to file an appeal if they want to challenge the ruling. No word yet on whether either plans to do so. Unclear, at this point.
The FCA said the case shows why trust and integrity aren’t optional in financial services. The regulator has pushed this line consistently in DB pension transfer cases, and it’s not wrong. Pension advice sits at the intersection of technical complexity and serious personal consequence — a bad recommendation at 55 can wreck someone’s retirement at 75.
The FCA’s decision notice on Dunne dates to 2024. The Tribunal’s review and this ruling came after that. The process between an FCA decision notice and a final Tribunal ruling can take time, and the outcome here — bans upheld, fines reduced — is a fairly typical shape for these cases. The regulator wins on the conduct question. The Tribunal sometimes adjusts the math.
Tribunal decisions are published publicly, which means the full reasoning is available for anyone in the industry who wants to understand exactly where Fenech and Dunne crossed lines. That transparency is part of how the FCA tries to make enforcement mean something beyond the individuals directly involved.
The revised fines: £41,230 for Dunne, £16,046 for Fenech.
Frequently Asked Questions
What penalties did the Upper Tribunal impose on Heather Dunne and Richard Fenech?
The Tribunal set fines of £41,230 for Heather Dunne and £16,046 for Richard Fenech, reducing the amounts originally proposed by the FCA while keeping both bans in place.
Why did the Tribunal reduce the fines if it upheld the bans?
The Tribunal found that only 18% of Dunne’s clients received unsuitable advice — not her full client base — and ruled that Fenech’s fine should reflect only earnings from his direct involvement with Dunne, not FSML’s broader revenues.
How much money did Heather Dunne move out of defined benefit pension schemes?
Between April 2015 and June 2017, Dunne’s advice led to transfers exceeding £126 million out of defined benefit pension schemes, with 92% of her clients moved out of those schemes during that period.
