The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that Nicholas Harper has been convicted of encouraging or assisting an offence to be committed in breach of the Data Protection Act in a prosecution brought by the FCA, but was acquitted after a retrial of conspiracy to defraud and of an offence linked to carrying on regulated activity in the UK without FCA authorisation. Harper, 26, from Taunton, pleaded guilty on 1 September and was fined GBP 100 and ordered to pay a GBP 30 victim surcharge for the data protection breach. The case sits alongside related convictions in which Raymondip Bedi and Patrick Mavanga were previously sentenced to a combined 12 years’ imprisonment for a scam that defrauded at least 65 investors of GBP 1,541,799, while another individual, Minas Filippidis, is wanted in relation to the same offences; the FCA said it cannot share further details about the Data Protection Act breach at this time.