Neil Woodford, the once-celebrated fund manager behind the catastrophic collapse of Woodford Investment Management, is facing renewed calls to be stripped of his CBE after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a damning final judgement.
An open letter has been sent to Sir Chris Wormald, Chair of the Honours Forfeiture Committee, by the Woodford Campaign Group and the Transparency Task Force. The letter urges the Committee to act swiftly and remove Woodford’s CBE in light of the FCA’s ruling.
The watchdog has fined Woodford £5,888,800 and banned him from holding senior management roles or managing retail investment funds. His former firm, Woodford Investment Management, has been fined £40 million for its role in the scandal.
The letter, signed by Andy Agathangelou FRSA, founder of the Transparency Task Force and co-founder of the Woodford Campaign Group, argues that the scale of harm caused by Woodford’s mismanagement is incompatible with the continued possession of an honour awarded “for services to the UK economy”.
“This scandal is obviously a matter of great public interest – hundreds of thousands of people have been directly impacted by it, many having lost life-changing amounts of money,” wrote Agathangelou.
“The scandal indubitably impacted the reputational integrity of the UK’s investment sector as a whole, with inevitable adverse effects on trust and confidence in investing, and thereby damage to the growth prospects of the UK economy.”
Campaigners note that previous hesitation from the Honours Forfeiture Committee stemmed from the need to wait for the outcome of regulatory investigations. Now that the FCA’s decision has been finalised, they argue, there is no justification for further delay.
The petition to have Woodford’s honour revoked, hosted by the Transparency Task Force, currently has over 500 signatories. Campaigners also cite the findings of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, whose report on the Woodford scandal outlines widespread consumer harm and governance failures across the investment landscape. The Transparency Task Force provides the Secretariat to the APPG.
The FCA’s judgment marks the culmination of years of anger over the downfall of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, which was frozen in June 2019 and ultimately closed down, locking in billions of pounds of investor losses. Many retail investors, including pension savers, saw their portfolios wiped out, triggering legal challenges and calls for reform across the UK’s financial regulatory framework.
Despite Woodford’s fall from grace, his CBE—awarded in 2015—has remained in place. That, campaigners argue, sends the wrong message about accountability and justice.
Agathangelou concluded his letter by calling for a swift and decisive response: “Given that the Financial Conduct Authority’s judgement is so critical of Mr Woodford, I hope the decision-making process you follow might be both straightforward and swift.”
The Honours Forfeiture Committee, a relatively opaque body that typically acts on the advice of government departments and regulators, has yet to respond publicly.
