Emma RadmoreIn the latest sentence to be handed down following FCA’s successful prosecutions of individuals involved in the Symbiosis Healthcare scheme, Samrat Bhandari has been imprisoned for 3.5 years and disqualified from being a director for 12 years. He was found to be the controlling mind behind a scheme that cold-called, used pressure sales and produced exaggerated promotional material to encourage investors who were mainly elderly and vulnerable to invest in a company that was in fact worthless. Among the counts on which Mr Bhandari was found guilty were breaches of section 397 FSMA (and then s90 FSA 2012) on misleading impressions, and breach of the prohibitions in sections 19 and 23 FSMA.
