Global company's Guernsey office sanctioned

Tuesday 09 July 2024

Trident Trust has been fined £266,000 with three of its senior staff members banned from holding directorships and each having to pay penalties of tens of thousands of pounds, after they collectively failed to meet regulatory requirements over a number of years.

Mark Le Tissier and Ryan Decker were each fined £63,000 while Boonyasinee (Kwan) Queripel was fined £39,900 after the Guernsey Financial Services Commission found that each of them, and Trident Trust as the Licensee, hadn't met the 'Minimum Criteria' laid out in the island's Fiduciaries Law.

Mr Le Tissier and Mr Dekker have both been banned from holding a supervised role for two years and 10 months under section 33 of the Enforcement Powers Law.

Mrs Queripel was banned from one year and nine months under the same section of the law.

The sanctions were levied in June and confirmed yesterday, but the wrongdoing dates back to 2017 - when the relevant law came into force - and potentially earlier. 

The GFSC said "the findings in this case were serious and spanned a significant period".

The GFSC also confirmed that Trident Trust continues to be allowed to operate under its full fiduciary license having "undertaken a significant programme of remediation" since 2021 when the problems were first identified.

Commenting on the historic case review, a Trident Trust spokesperson said: “We have worked constructively with the GFSC to understand these complex and interrelated issues, which related to historic services provided to yacht management companies.  This represented a small, specific line of the Guernsey fiduciary business. 

“In its findings the GFSC recognises the significant programme of remediation undertaken by Trident Trust (Guernsey) since 2021 and notes that it is satisfied that it can continue to operate under its full fiduciary licence. 

“Our professional teams in Guernsey are focussed on continuing to provide excellent services to both existing and new clients.”

What happened?

The GFSC identified numerous regulatory failures, including not documenting risk assessments, not regularly reviewing risk assessments and not caring out customer due diligence. 

As Licensee, Trident Trust also "failed to take reasonable measures to establish the source of funds and source of wealth of its high risk business relationships" and "failed to perform ongoing and effective monitoring of its business relationships".

The company also failed to establish and maintain effective procedures and controls to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, failed to apply its own sanction policies and controls effectively, and failed to keep signed records of its terms of agreements with a client.

As a former Managing Director of the Guernsey office, and later the firm's European Managing Director, the GFSC found that Mr Le Tissier "failed to fulfil the fit and proper requirements of the MCL".

Despite extensive experience in the regulatory framework and fiduciary business, Mr Le Tissier is said to have failed to ensure Trident Trust applied the regulatory framework adequately, "resulting in systemic breaches of the Regulations".

After the firm had been informed that it was being referred to the GFSC's Enforcement Division, Mr Le Tissier changed board meeting minutes.

The GFSC said "this demonstrated a serious lack of competence, soundness of judgement and diligence".

The Commission found that Mr Dekker - who took over as Guernsey MD in 2020 - had also "demonstrated a serious lack of competence, soundness of judgement and diligence".

He failed to inform the GFSC of "significant deficiencies in relation to the private yacht marine business and continued a narrative during 2020 that the business was non- regulated".

The GFSC said he "also failed to ensure that an accurate client list was provided to the Commission prior to the Commission’s onsite visit...which could have prevented the Commission from reviewing those files, and concealed the significant AML/CFT deficiencies, if it had not been subsequently identified by the Commission."

Mrs Queripel was also found to have "failed to fulfil the fit and proper requirements of the MCL".

The GFSC said that as Money Laundering Reporting Officer and Money Laundering Compliance Officer, she failed to ensure Trident Trust was applying its policies, procedures and controls to the private yacht marine business.

The Commission said "Mrs Queripel was instrumental to the Firm’s failing to provide an accurate client list to the Commission prior to the Commission’s onsite visit" which could have concealed Trident Trust's significant deficiencies.

The Commission found that Mrs Queripel "demonstrated a lack of understanding of the regulatory framework which resulted in systemic breaches" and that she "demonstrated a serious lack of competence, soundness of judgement and diligence".

The Commission’s investigation was launched following an on-site visit to Trident Trust in March 2020 - shortly after Mr Le Tissier had been promoted to European Managing Director, and Mr Dekker had replaced him as Guernsey MD.

This visit "identified multiple breaches of the regulatory requirements in a high proportion of the client files reviewed". This included 10 "high risk business relationships which had deficiencies associated to either the source of funds, source of wealth, or both", said the GFSC.

It also said these failings came after Trident Trust pledged to review all its high-risk relationships during 2019. The firm had also said it would remediate any identified deficiencies found at that time.

The GFSC said the failings continued until 2021.