Burdett and Goodchild bans and fines upheld 19 February 2026UK Reporter: Tahlia Kraefft
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The UK’s upper tribunal has upheld the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) decision to ban Stephen Joseph Burdett and James Paul Goodchild from working in financial services.
In May 2025, the FCA barred Burdett and Goodchild from working in regulated financial services for recklessly exposing pension holders to unsuitable investments, issuing them fines of £265,071 and £47,600.
The tribunal also found it was appropriate for the FCA to impose the penalties to Burdett and Goodchild who served in senior roles at Synergy Wealth and Westbury Private Clients respectively.
The FCA said because of Burdett, 232 personal pension funds worth over £10 million were switched into high-risk investment portfolios that were obviously unsuitable.
The portfolios were created and managed by Goodchild at Westbury Private Clients, with around 38 per cent of overall holdings linked to a single offshore property developer.
Burdett allowed Synergy Wealth’s customers to receive reports indicating that their money would be placed in low or medium risk portfolios, despite his knowledge that the portfolios were high-risk.
Goodchild included the misleading terms 'cautious' and 'balanced' in the names of two of the three high-risk portfolios.
Furthermore, Burdett acted as a director of Synergy Wealth despite knowing he did not have the required FCA approval to perform that function.
He also failed to co-operate with the FCA’s investigation.
The FCA intervened in 2016 to protect consumers, stopping the pensions business of Synergy Wealth and Westbury Private Clients.
Both firms subsequently went into liquidation and were dissolved.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid out over £1.4 million to victims, to date.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, notes: “People trusted Mr Burdett and Mr Goodchild with their hard-earned savings and were badly let down. The pair worked together to switch customers' pensions into obviously unsuitable, high-risk investments.
“They made significant personal profits from their actions. We will not tolerate such conduct and are pleased that the tribunal agrees.'
The tribunal noted that “Mr Burdett’s actions have shown little regard for the interests of Synergy Wealth’s clients, pension holders whose pensions were transferred to the Westbury Private Clients self-invested personal pension and were invested in ways which Mr Burdett knew were obviously high risk and hopelessly inappropriate”.
In addition, the tribunal found that: “As an experienced and qualified investment manager, Mr Goodchild must have known of the risk of putting together for pension holders of varying risk appetites portfolios with any significant levels of concentration of investment into an obviously high risk project... He completely ignored this risk, without regard to the interests of the pension holders.”
The tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Goodchild's “cursory due diligence … was even remotely sufficient to constitute reasonable steps to ensure suitability”.
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