Rollet v DFSA

Mr Rollet was the former Senior Executive Officer of an asset management firm called La Tresorerie Limited (LT). LT is now in liquidation. The DFSA had taken enforcement action against LT for various regulatory breaches and in its proceedings against Mr Rollet alleged that he was “knowingly concerned” in those breaches. In addition, the DFSA alleged that Mr Rollet had failed to act with integrity, failed to ensure that LT’s business was organised so that it could be managed and controlled effectively and provided false and misleading information to the DFSA about his involvement in an unlawful service that was being operated from the LT. The unlawful service that was being operated by LT involved the delivery of large amounts of physical cash to clients, with physical cash occasionally being carried through airports and across international borders.

Mr Rollet argued that he was unaware of certain aspects of the physical cash service that was being offered by LT and he said that he relied on others to advise him as to its propriety. The FMT rejected these arguments. In fact, the FMT found that Mr Rollet knew the detail of the service, or deliberately chose not to know some of it, and he did not instruct anyone internally or externally to provide advice on the service, probably because he knew the advice would be to stop it, given that it was obviously improperly. The FMT considered that Mr Rollet showed a “brazen disregard of important principles by a senior executive” and that he had shown “no recognition … of the seriousness of these matters.”

The FMT's decision can be found here.