Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP | Sarah Hawes | Roddy Martin | Gareth Sykes | Shaun Williamson
United Kingdom
The Upper Tribunal has upheld the decisions by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to fine two directors of Metro Bank PLC for being knowingly concerned in Metro Bank’s breach of the Listing Rules, but it has determined that the fines should be reduced by 25%.
The FCA fined Metro Bank PLC £10 million for breaches of Listing Rule 1.3.3R (misleading information not to be published) in December 2022. At the same time, it provisionally fined Metro Bank’s former CEO and former CFO, but both referred their Decision Notices to the Upper Tribunal.
The decisions related to inaccurate information published by Metro Bank concerning its risk weighted assets in an announcement issued on 24 October 2018. In publishing the announcement, Metro Bank breached Listing Rule 1.3.3R by failing to take reasonable care to ensure that it was not misleading, false or deceptive and did not omit anything likely to affect the import of the information. The FCA concluded that Metro Bank’s former CEO and CFO were knowingly concerned in the breach. For further information, see our blog post here.
The Upper Tribunal has upheld the FCA decision that the directors were knowingly concerned in the breach, but has determined that the fines should be reduced to £167,325 for the former CEO (from £223,100) and £100,950 (from £134,600) for the former CFO.
Although these breaches related to the pre-July 2024 Listing Rules, the requirement for issuers not to publish misleading information has been carried over to the new UK Listing Rules (UKLR 1.3.3.R) and applies to all listed companies.
This article first appeared on Lexology | Source
