Not upheld: failure to communicate material operational information regarding trading embargo on pension assets complaint against Mattioli Woods Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr J complained to Mattioli Woods Limited (MW), the trustee of his SIPP, that it failed to inform him of a trading embargo imposed during the transfer of his pension from Phoenix Life to abrdn. Mr J claimed he was prevented from completing a withdrawal on 1 April 2025 and suffered approximately £20,000 in losses. The embargo notification was sent by abrdn on 17 December 2024 to an MW email address that had been decommissioned in March 2022, so MW did not receive it. However, abrdn had successfully contacted MW using current email addresses on other occasions, and Mr J's IFA was copied into the notification email. The ombudsman found that MW was not in a position to convey information it had not received, and that even if MW had been at fault, the information was successfully conveyed to Mr J's IFA who was actively involved in planning the fund switch, creating an intervening factor that should have prevented financial harm. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that MW was not in a position to convey information about the embargo that it had not received, as abrdn sent the notification to a decommissioned email address. Although abrdn had successfully contacted MW using current email addresses on other occasions, the primary issue was that MW did not receive this particular notification. However, even if MW had been at fault, there was a built-in redundancy in the communication chain because abrdn also notified Mr J's IFA, who was actively involved in planning the fund switch. The information was therefore successfully conveyed to a party closely involved in Mr J's affairs. The ombudsman found an intervening factor in the chain of causation: the IFA's receipt of the information and their active involvement in the fund switch planning. The ombudsman noted that the IFA, as the party closest to Mr J's affairs and actively planning fund switches with him, should reasonably have been expected to apply the same standard of care. The ombudsman declined to make findings on the IFA's responsibilities but suggested Mr J might consider directing a complaint against the IFA.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website