A United
Kingdom court has authorized the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to distribute £106,650
of recovered funds to 1,387 victims of illegal CFDs signals provider, 24HR
Trading Academy. Investors that participated in the scheme lost a total of £1.3 million, with their losses ranging from £52,781 to 10
pence per investor, according to court document.
Master
McQuail of the England and Wales High Court reached the decision on Wednesday,
approving FCA’s plan to distribute the fund in proportion to each investor’s
loss. However, only those whose losses stand above £500 are to be compensated.
Court
Confirms FCA’s Distribution Proposal
Mohammad
Maricar, the sole director and shareholder of 24HR Trading Academy, ran the unregistered ‘signal service’ platform, providing forex recommendations
to investors. Through the platform’s website, Maricar also shared links to two partner forex brokers’ pages for the firm’s clients to sign up with them. He earned commission from this practice.
Finance
Magnates reported in February that the FCA received
£106,650 from the
official receiver in the case and sought court permission to distribute the fund.
Delivering his ruling, McQuail accepted the British watchdog’s
proposal to pay only investors identified via bank statements and PayPal records
made to the forex brokerages.
“The
quality of the records available to the FCA in [the] Maricar [case] means that the FCA is
confident that a pro rata distribution can fairly be implemented based on the losses
it has identified from its enforcement action,” McQuail said in his court ruling.
FCA Fights for Fund Recovery
FCA first
acted against 24HR Trading Academy in September 2019 when it flagged down the platform for operating without the necessary regulatory license.
Following this warning, the British watchdog in April 2020 initiated a court
action against Maricar and froze £624,000 of his assets.
In March
2021, the high court ruled in favour of FCA and Maricar was ordered to repay
the losses with his liability capped at £530,000. However, following the director’s default on the restitution payment, the markets supervisor in August of the year obtained a bankruptcy
order against
Maricar.
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This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.
