The Financial Conduct Authority has issued a final notice fining Jean-Noel Alba, former deputy chief executive officer of H2O AM LLP, £1,049,500 and banning him from the financial services industry after finding he lacked integrity by misleading the FCA during its investigation into H2O. Mr Alba, previously identified in the FCA’s notice as “Senior Manager A”, was the principal point of contact with the regulator and provided false and misleading statements and documentation. The FCA found he asked junior colleagues to create committee minutes for meetings that had not taken place and submitted due diligence materials that were created years after the relevant investments, despite claiming they had been produced at the time. The case arose from the FCA’s wider investigation into H2O’s failure between April 2015 and November 2019 to carry out proper due diligence on high-risk, hard-to-sell investments linked to the Tennor Group and related companies, which left investor money trapped, with the FCA agreeing in 2024 that H2O would pay affected investors EUR 250 million; H2O is no longer authorised in the UK following its voluntary cancellation of permissions. The FCA concluded Mr Alba breached APER Statement of Principle 1 and 4 and Individual Conduct Rule 1 and 3, while noting the Autorité des marchés financiers is the designated regulator for the collective investments managed cross-border under the UCITS Directive.

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