The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided to fine Carlos Fuenmayor, the Chief Executive of BancTrust, £99,600 for failing to disclose three separate matters to the FCA.

Mr Fuenmayor failed, until December 2021, to tell the FCA, including in application forms that he submitted on behalf of BancTrust, that he had been placed under investigation by the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in December 2017 and was then sanctioned by them in June 2019.

He also failed to disclose that, shortly before an inspection in November 2019, the National Financial Intelligence Unit of Venezuela had frozen his local currency bank accounts, as well as those of his Venezuelan companies and their directors.

The failure to disclose these issues meant that the FCA did not have the opportunity to fully consider Mr Fuenmayor’s fitness and propriety or seek further information.

Mr Fuenmayor has referred his Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal where he and the FCA will present their cases. Any findings in the FCA’s Decision Notice are therefore provisional and reflect the FCA’s belief as to what occurred and how it considers his behaviour should be characterised.