Moved your pension into a Carey Pension’s SIPP?  You may want to check if you should be claiming compensation for mis-selling.

Many investors have been given poor or mis-leading advice about transferring their personal pension into a Carey Pension SIPP.

Fortunately, successful claims have been made against regulated financial advisers for recommending unsuitable pension transfers.

However not all pension “advice” comes from a regulated firm or individual.

Some people transferred their pensions into Carey SIPPs as a result of unregulated introducers CL&P Brokers.

Commercial Land & Property Brokers (CL&P)

CL&P – Commercial Land & Property Brokers were an unregulated introducer company based in Spain.

The managing director Terence Wright was on the FSA (now Financial Conduct Authority) watchlist.

Firms were advised not to do business with Terence Wright and that CL&P were offering financial incentives to clients to invest. They believed he was targeting UK investors through the firm Cash In My Pension.

Cold Call Pension Reviews

Unregulated introducers like CL&P Brokers are notorious for their “cold call pension review” way of marketing.

These pension reviews are little more than sales exercises designed to persuade people to transfer their pensions.

Many investors unknowingly transferred their very safe and secure pensions into risky and sometimes worthless SIPPs.

Containing high-risk and unregulated investments, like Store First, which are considered unsuitable for the average investor.

Accepting business from an unregulated introducer wasn’t against the rules. But it seems many red flags against CL&P weren’t picked up or acted on promptly by Carey’s.

Carey’s accepting business from CL&P was part of a high court case against the pension provider.

Carey Pension Court Case

Carey Pensions have been involved in high court proceedings in what’s been called a “landmark SIPP case”.

This has been a long running battle between Carey Pensions and their client Mr Adams.

There were many claims put on hold with the Financial Ombudsman Service pending the outcome of this case.

Mr Adams argued that Carey’s were responsible for significant losses to his pension fund after he transferred into a SIPP they administered.

Options (Carey Pensions) initially won the case in May 2020.

However, the decision was overturned in April 2021 when Mr Adams won his case at the Court of Appeal.

This meant he was entitled to recover the money he paid into it, as well as compensation for the losses he suffered.

Latest On The Carey Pensions Court Case – April 2022

The Supreme Court has denied Options the right to appeal, therefore the decision in favour of Mr Adams will stand.

As the Supreme Court is the final court of appeal in the UK, it could mean an end to this case.

Read more about this latest decision in the Carey Pensions court case here.

Will the outcome of Carey’s court case affect claims?

The outcome of this case is a landmark victory for consumers. Especially for consumers with complaints against SIPP providers on the same basis as this case.

Last year the Financial Ombudsman Service said it had nearly 600 open complaints against Options UK Personal Pensions (Careys).

Hopefully it will now give the FOS power and freedom to progress and uphold cases much quicker in favour of consumers. Without battling negative responses from SIPP providers using the previous argument that awaiting the outcome of this court case was a valid reason to reject FOS decisions.

Fortunately, the ongoing Carey Pensions court saga hasn’t had a detrimental effect on our Financial Ombudsman decisions.

Our Success against Careys

We were the first claims management company to receive a successful final decision from the FOS against Carey Pensions (Options) on the basis of our claim.

This was on behalf of our client Mr S. He was also invested in Storefirst through a Carey SIPP after being contacted by CL&P.

This is one of the many Final Decisions we have now received on the same basis as the Adams Vs Carey case. All of which have all been successful in favour of our clients!

To see the most recent decisions published please visit the FOS’ website and enter Options UK Personal Pensions LLP (previously called Carey Pensions UK LLP)  into the “keyword or product” field and search.

The FOS confirm that work is well advanced on a number of other groups of cases and they anticipate a number of further decisions being published in the coming months.

If you have any questions about the Carey Pensions court case please feel free to get in touch.

Carey Pensions and STM

In February 2018 Carey’s decided to separate their book into “good and distressed”. This saw many SIPP clients with illiquid funds moved into a separate scheme.

Later that year they sold the majority stake in Carey Pensions, excluding the “distressed” book, to STM.

Carey Pensions changed its name to Options UK Personal Pensions LLP.

STM has reportedly set aside £21.4m for possible future claims that may arise as a result of the court case.

Get an expert opinion with our free assessment check

Whilst each case is individual, as mis-selling specialists we know to look for certain signs that in our experience indicate that mis-selling may have happened.

Our assessment is free and there’s absolutely no obligation to use our service if you have case.