Subject: FW: UNFAIR and UNREASONABLE - Published in Money Management as 'Fossy Logic'

    From: IFA Defence Union [mailto:enquiriesifadu.co.uk]

    Sent: 22 April 2006 22:07
    To: 'walter.merricksfinancial-ombudsman.org.uk'; 'John Tiner'; 'David Kenmir'; 'Callum McCarthy'
    Subject: UNFAIR and UNREASONABLE - Published in Money Management as 'Fossy Logic'

    Dear 'Walter'

    You will have read 'Fossy Logic' in the May edition of Money Management as posted to www.ifadu.co.uk

    The original writing is here, it is far less emotional than anything I would put together as everyone knows:

    Despite the protestations of your 'press officers' the constant criticism of your organisation is not without merit, we even have FSA employees who think you are out of control and FSCS officers who are

    frustrated by your attempts to control everything. The long list of unhappy 'customers' includes Banks, Building Societies, Insurers, Fund Managers, Stockbrokers, Lloyds Syndicates, Surveyors, Motor Traders and of course the humble IFAs both past and present, none of these are confident that your staff know what they are doing.

    One of your senior employees is said to have resigned because you are acting ultra vires, why is it that you and so many of your staff don't agree? Is it because someone else is pulling your strings and you

    are 'only following orders'? Remember the story about the Jews?

    You are supposed to be independent and Justice Lightman has said that you must be seen to be independent. I have evidence that you are not as independent as any fee paying IFA has a right to expect, this includes internal memos from the FSA telling the FOS to 'force their hand' when an IFA firm refuses to bow to your commands, it also includes a letter from an MP on the TSC who is virtually threatening your position unless a decision is reversed in favour of his constituent, it was reversed as requested so how can we have confidence in your assertions that you are impartial?

    In all I have four lever arch files crammed full of evidence that will be presented to Courts on both sides of the English Channel, why do we have to go to these lengths to obtain the rights that go back to Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights? Now we have the Human Rights Act 1998 which as it happens was an attempt to stop UK subjects taking cases to the ECtHR and showing the world how unbearable things have become in the UK.

    You are reported to have a legal background and have an interest in human rights, I suggest you should look at yourself in the mirror each day and ask yourself if you are happy with the injustices for which you are personally responsible. Please don't tell me these cases are in the minority, even one case of an IFA being made bankrupt to fuel your compensation machine is one too many. 

    The Leviathan is growing in stature fuelled by power beyond the Judiciary's wildest dreams, my vision of a regulatory empire built upon the bones of the financial services industry is coming to life and nobody can stop it, yet. 

    Evan Owen

    The IFA Defence Union

    "Most regulators’ careers end prematurely in failure and disgrace."

    HOWARD DAVIES : HENRY THORNTON LECTURE : CITY UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL : 4 NOVEMBER 1998

    Oppression can only survive through silence: Carmen de Monteflores

    "Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem"

    - John Galsworthy