PIA expels adviser for forging client's signature

Christopher Cundell, a director of a Skipton-based firm of independent financial advisers, has been expelled by the Personal Investment Authority for forging a client's signature.

One of Mr Cundell's clients made a complaint about the firm, Wilman & Lodge, to the PIA ombudsman, which then requested documents from Mr Cundell. He subsequently forged the complainant's signature on the documents.

The PIA yesterday declined to elaborate on the details of the offence. In a statement it said: "Mr Cundell has ceased to be fit and proper because he submitted a document ... on to which he had fraudulently transposed an investor's signature. The forgery was undertaken without the authority of the client and with the ultimate objective of seeking to ensure that the client's claim to the Ombudsman would not succeed."

Mr Cundell is the second person to lose registration with the PIA this year.