Former St James’s Place partner Peter Carron has been disqualified by the High Court from acting as a company director for 13 years for misleading investors.

Former St James’s Place partner Peter Carron has been disqualified by the High Court from acting as a company director for 13 years for misleading investors.

Following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, Carron, director of Primrose Associates, Comment Technologies and Evaluate Technologies, was found to be misleading investors around two companies and for submitting false returns to his industry regulator, as well as causing another company to trade to the detriment of HM Revenue & Customs.  

The High Court ordered that Carron should not act as a director, manage, or in anyway control a company until July 2027.

“This is a very sad case where some people may have been misled by one individual to make investments which were nothing to do with St James's Place. We have thoroughly investigated each case and bent over backwards to come up with a fair solution,” said a spokesman for the firm in a separate statement.

The investigation found that Carron misled investors in Primrose, a mortgage brokerage company and Comment, a mortgage software company, by claiming that their capital was invested with little or no risk and that he could “personally guarantee” their returns, the Insolvency Service said in a statement.

In addition to this he failed to disclose that their investments were being paid into two insolvent companies – Primrose and Comment. The financial returns submitted to the Financial Conduct Authority, Primrose’s regulator, showed Primrose to be falsely solvent and financially viable.

At the failure of Primrose and Comment, there were approximately 50 investors claiming lost investments in excess of £7.4 million ($12.4 million).  

According to the Insolvency Service investigation, Carron also failed to pay PAYE & national insurance contributions in excess of £750,000 ($1.3 million) for Evaluate Technologies, against which no payment had been made over the company’s entire trading period.        

“The allegations I have found proved that he is willing to mislead his regulator, HMRC, and those who to his knowledge are relying on him for guidance. Such a person is manifestly unfit to be a director of a company since it is plain that the public are exposed to the risk of loss as a result of such misconduct,” said Judge Pelling QC.

In relation to this matter, in 2009 Carron was involved in controversy regarding misleading advice to St James Place’s clients, where he advised 31 clients to invest in his own projects under the false impression that the deals had the backing of St James’s Place.