The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has urged the remaining victims of unauthorised scheme Churchgate Trading Syndicate to get in touch.
The scam’s mastermind, Stuart Mudge, conned investors out of over £8.5m ($10.4m, €9.5m) for a failed spread betting scheme between 2009 and 2012.
Spread betting is a highly-risky type of speculation that involves taking a bet on the price movement of a security.
A spread betting company quotes two prices, the bid and offer price, known as the spread, and investors bet whether the price of the underlying stock will be lower than the bid or higher than the offer.
Mudge promised guaranteed returns of 15% every quarter, but they never materialised.
Compensation for all
In February 2012, the FCA obtained interim injunctions against Mudge and his accomplice Anthony Lewis, freezing their assets and preventing the duo form operating the betting scheme.
Lewis settled the case on a ‘no fault’ basis and paid £446,000 to the regulator in 2014.
Subsequently, the FCA obtained a high court order forcing Mudge to pay £7m back to investors.
The financial watchdog was only able to trace 93 of the victims to whom it distributed the funds in 2016.
But now it has around £100,000 left to give to five investors who have not claimed their share yet.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said:”If you believe you were an investor in one of these unauthorised schemes, please get in contact with us.
“We have worked hard to secure and return funds to eligible investors and it is only right that all victims of this insidious scheme should benefit from our work by claiming the sums due to them as soon as possible.”
