FCA sues Neil Woodford for allegedly offering unauthorised investment advice | Financial sector
The UK financial regulator is taking legal action against former investment star Neil Woodford for allegedly offering unauthorized investment advice online, months after he was banned from the city.
The Financial Conduct Authority said it was seeking injunctions against Woodford and W4.0, a company registered in the United Arab Emirates, to prevent them from carrying out “potentially illegal activities”.
“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has commenced civil proceedings against Mr Neil Woodford and W4.0,” the regulator said in a brief statement on Monday afternoon. “The FCA alleges that Mr Woodford and W4.0 provided regulated investment advice and engaged in financial promotions without authorization through the subscription-based platform www.w4pz.com.”
This comes a year after the FCA banned Woodford from taking on senior management roles and managing funds for retail investors in the UK as a result of the collapse of his popular equity fund in 2019.
Woodford’s equity fund was worth more than £10bn at its peak, but was suffering from several poorly performing investments in companies including estate agent Purplebricks, finance firm Burford Capital and doorstep lender Provident Financial. This series of bad bets, combined with Woodford’s decision to put money into a series of unlisted private companies that were harder to sell, led to the fund’s suspension and eventual collapse in 2019.
Woodford resigned in mid-October 2019 and subsequently closed his investment firm. Managers later closed the fund and returned the money to most of the 30,000 investors at a large loss. Woodford and his investment firm were fined a total of £46 million by the regulator in 2025.
But Woodford resurfaced last year to announce the launch of a subscription-based investment service called W4.0, which allows investors to download and implement their strategies through their own accounts.
“Because we are not bound by restrictions such as fund launches or minimum sizes, I can share more strategies, more ideas and more updates than would be possible in a traditional fund structure,” Woodford wrote on his blog at the time.
“W4.0 is like having Neil Woodford by your side,” marketing materials said.
W4.0’s parent company, W Four Point Zero FZE LLC, is registered in the United Arab Emirates, according to the city watchdog.
The Guardian could not immediately reach Woodford for comment.
