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Employee Directors at Sports Direct

It seems that controversial company Sports Direct (SPD) are likely to become the first UK public company to have a worker on their board. They plan to appoint an elected "Worker's Representative" who will attend and speak at board meetings although they would not formally be appointed as a director. A spokesman for Sports Direct said: "Having explored all options we believe this is the best way to ensure the Workers' Representative is free to champion the interests of all staff. ...

It’s a Budget – But Not As We Know It

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, delivered his Spring budget yesterday. But as most of the big changes have been moved to the Autumn, this was a "steady as you go" statement in essence. However there were some significant changes for private investors. The biggest is that the tax free allowance on dividends has been reduced from £5,000 to £2,000. So if you rely on dividend income, say in retirement, this will cost you substantially more - over £1,000 extra in tax in some ...

Secret Cautions by the FCA

The Financial Times reported this morning that it had obtained information from the FCA on the number of private warnings it had issued over the last 5 years using a Freedom of Information Act request. The answer given was that there had been 39 of them. ShareSoc has complained about this practice in the past, particularly with regards to AIM companies where the LSE has a similar approach. Indeed we complained about the use of private warnings in our submission to the ...

Clamp Down on CFDs – ShareSoc’s Comments

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is proposing to clamp down on CFDs (contracts for difference) and similar financial products such as binary bets. CFDs are complex financial products that...

Government Action on Dormant Accounts

The Government has today reported that as much as £2 billion is sitting idle in dormant accounts such as share trading accounts, ISAs, pensions and insurance products. That includes £715 million alone in investment and wealth management accounts. This is noted by the Independent Dormant Assets Commission set up by the Government which has looked at whether the existing scheme for dormant bank and building society accounts should be extended. Minister for Civil Society, Rob Wilson, suggests that this money could help ...