Three ex-directors of Swinton Insurance, parent of specialist motorcycle broker Swinton Bikes, have been fined a total of £928,000 and had restrictions imposed on their future business involvement by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The trio — former chief executive Peter Halpin, finance director Anthony Clare and Nicholas Bowyer — were punished by the FCA for running a aggressively sales-focused company culture that was to the detriment of customers. Swinton’s board of directors, including Halpin, Clare and Bowyer, stood to pocket a bonus pool of about £90m if operating profits reached £110m in 2011.
Halpin was personally fined £412,700 and banned from acting as chief executive at any FCA-authorised entity. The other two were banned from “performing significant influence functions at financial services firms”.
All three had been sacked in December 2011 by Swinton’s French owner Covea, along with operations director Jackie Ordish and IT director Adrian Hazeldine, following dubious performance-related share scheme payments.