Opening Statement

On Friday, 5th June 2009, the Financial Services Authority (FSA, now the FCA) triggered the urgent and disorderly collapse of Keydata Investment Services Ltd (Keydata). This was executed by circumventing due process and issuing an Own Initiative Variation of Permission (OIVOP), citing insolvency as the justification for urgent intervention. On the next working day, the FSA petitioned the High Court to place Keydata into administration on the same grounds, appointing PwC Partner Daniel Schwarzmann as Administrator.

This website reveals the untold story of how the FSA, under the stewardship of Lilian Small (Associate, Enforcement Division), Rebecca Irving (Solicitor, Enforcement Division), and others within the organisation, ruthlessly orchestrated this outcome. Behind closed doors, the FSA instructed Daniel Schwarzmann to prepare a Solvency Review with a predetermined objective: to conclude that Keydata was insolvent. This review was then used to justify the OIVOP — despite both PwC and the FSA knowing that Keydata was not, in truth, insolvent.

The issuance of the OIVOP was delegated to Lesley Titcomb, a junior director, bypassing more senior decision-makers such as Jon Pain, Margaret Cole, and Tim Herrington. Keydata was denied its legal right to a hearing before the FSA’s Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC), stripping it of any opportunity for a fair and impartial challenge.

Then in 2016, seven years later, when several Keydata directors brought a misfeasance claim against the FSA, the regulator changed its narrative regarding the reasons for issuing the OIVOP – raising serious questions about its integrity, transparency, and accountability.

If you were a financial victim of Keydata’s collapse and have not received compensation, please contact: victim@keydata.co.uk