Football Index Collapse: Lessons Learned

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for tabling this debate. I know she also secured a debate in 2022 on the impacts of the Football Index collapse. I would like to acknowledge the contribution she has made to ensuring that these events receive the attention that they deserve. She is an admirable representative of those in her constituency and others who have been affected. The Government appreciate, and I certainly do, the impact these events have had on them and many others. I personally offer my sympathies to all of those affected financially by the collapse of Football Index.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions today. I also want to say thank you to David Hammel for his campaigning work on behalf of people who have lost money as a result of these events. I have met Mr Hammel and know that he has engaged administrators, regulators and politicians on behalf of those affected.

Today’s debate has been valuable and I commend all those who have contributed for their thoughtful comments. It has been important for me personally to hear the perspective shared this afternoon on this important topic. I want to be clear that I and the Government recognise the serious consequences that the collapse of Football Index has had on consumers. As I said, I sympathise with all those affected. It is important that we ensure that a similar scenario cannot happen again.

I will not repeat the background to these events, as that has been well covered by colleagues. I want to focus on the action being taken following the independent review of the regulation of Football Index, led by Malcolm Sheehan KC. I thank him for that work. His report examined the regulatory circumstances around the granting of a licence to BetIndex, its subsequent suspension and the company’s ultimate financial failure. Importantly, it identified areas, as others have said, where the Gambling Commission could have been more effective in responding to the challenges posed by this novel product. It also highlighted where the FCA could have co-operated more effectively with the commission.

The report recommended that the Gambling Commission should enhance its scrutiny of novel products; such products are less likely to fit neatly into existing regulatory frameworks, and there is greater risk that they are poorly understood by customers, as colleagues have mentioned. It recommended closer examination of the language typically associated with investments and financial markets, which can obscure the fact that a product is a gambling rather than a financial product. It outlined the need for more prompt decision making, quicker internal escalation and greater scrutiny of any differences between described and actual features of products. Finally, the report recommended that the commission consider whether operators should be required to demonstrate additional levels of liquidity in the case of longer-term tradeable bets like those offered by Football Index.

Although Football Index was never regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Mr Sheehan’s report recommended that the FCA should also seek to achieve quicker and more consistent decision making on regulatory responsibility issues. The report concluded that the FCA could have been faster to come to decisions in the Football Index case and to communicate those to the Gambling Commission.

The Gambling Commission and the FCA agreed a formal memorandum of understanding in June 2021. The Sheehan report described that as an appropriate and proactive step. However, it also made recommendations about how the memorandum could be strengthened. It recommended that the new memorandum should include an agreed mechanism for resolving disputes over regulatory responsibility; mechanisms for ensuring that disputes are identified, discussed and escalated where necessary; and provisions for the written recording of meeting outcomes.

It is vital, as the title of the debate points out, that we learn lessons from the Football Index case to ensure that a similar situation does not take place again. I am pleased that all the recommendations of the report for the commission and the FCA have been implemented in full.

The Gambling Commission has taken various actions to achieve that. It consulted on and updated its statement of principles for licensing and regulation in June 2022. It has updated how it assesses risk so that novel products are properly considered. It now undertakes systematic reviews of novel products offered by existing licensees. It has also increased the resources available to ensure that licensees disclose notifiable changes to products. The commission has also changed its approach to licensing products where long-term bets might appear more like financial products. It has made it clear in its statement of principles that it will not normally grant a licence to products that use language usually associated with investments or financial products.

Various colleagues raised issues around advertising, and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) asked about the gambling White Paper. We are not introducing one single Bill because we want to ensure that we get as many of the changes done as quickly as possible. We are making good progress. I have consistently committed to trying to get everything done by the summer. Some of these things will be ready for statutory instruments soon, but some are what the Gambling Commission will implement. By splitting it up, rather than having one big Bill that might take a long time to get through this place, we are proceeding at pace to bring about the reforms.

The FCA has also implemented all the recommendations from the report. Importantly, it has taken steps to improve the speed and consistency of its decision making, including nominating an executive director to oversee the relationship with the Gambling Commission.

An updated memorandum of understanding addressing all the review’s recommendations was agreed between the commission and the FCA in November 2022. The agreement has established a process and timeline for co-operation between the two authorities and a process for escalation, and created a relationship owner and primary contact in each authority to oversee the operation of the memorandum. It also requires a quarterly minuted meeting between the two authorities to ensure that the memorandum operates as it should. The most recent meeting took place yesterday.

There are also now ad hoc meetings between the chief executive officers of the two authorities, which provide an avenue for escalation of regulatory matters if required. I am grateful to the Gambling Commission and the FCA for their work to ensure that this important report is acted on.

I mentioned David Hammel, and I admire the work of campaign groups such as the Football Index action group and the way that it has conducted itself. I met him last year and we have had follow-up correspondence. I am taking seriously the extra evidence that Mr Hammel has submitted in relation to the Sheehan review, and I am considering, as the hon. Member for Blaydon mentioned, whether it would be appropriate and feasible for Mr Hammel’s evidence to be scrutinised by someone external to the Department.

A lot of Members mentioned the new product, KiX, which has described itself as a football cryptocurrency trading project and bears similarities to Football Index. It involves trading footballers in the form of so-called “Digital Athlete Tokens”, which are purchased with cryptocurrency. The tokens pay out a yield based on the performance of footballers. It appears that the product is in a test phase and is not currently live, nor does it appear possible to deposit currency.

The Gambling Commission is taking proactive steps in relation to KiX. It has written to the hon. Members for Blaydon, for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) to outline its approach, and it has written to my Department. The commission is currently reviewing a number of elements of the KiX product. That includes a review by its compliance and legal teams to consider whether, if launched, it would meet the definition of gambling under the Gambling Act 2005. It has also written to the individuals responsible for KiX for further information on the product and their intentions, and to highlight the consequences of launching a product that meets the definition of gambling in Great Britain without an appropriate licence.

[Ronnie Cowan]

Is the Minister saying that the Gambling Commission alone will decide whether KiX is given a licence to bring its products to the marketplace? I have a meeting with the Gambling Commission at 4.30 this afternoon and I would like to ask it that question, too.

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Gentleman interrupted me just before I was going to say that the commission and the FCA are already engaging to establish the details of the product and to agree the appropriate steps.

There have been reports that two individuals previously involved in running Football Index are involved in KiX. Adam Cole was the co-founder of Football Index. He surrendered his personal management licence in September 2021 while under review, and the commission reached findings of fact regarding his involvement in Football Index. Those would be considered if he were to make a new application for a personal licence.

The commission also wrote to Abdullah Suleyman, the former head of trading at Football Index, to confirm the nature of his involvement in KiX. Following the letter, he surrendered his personal management licence on Monday 22 April.

[Liz Twist]

I recognise some of the steps that have been taken, but this comes down to the fact that we do not want to see people being taken in in the same way as they were with Football Index. It is great that those individuals have given up their personal management licences, but they have already shared their information and used their experience to set up a new system. What more can we do to make sure that people in the UK are clear about the status of this and that it is properly regulated?

[Stuart Andrew]

I was going to come on to that point. I reassure colleagues that the commission will continue to take a very active role in the monitoring of this product, and the FCA is also looking into the KiX business and will take appropriate risk-based action if it identifies that any of its activities fall into the FCA’s remit. However, I will raise this issue with both organisations again to ensure that everything is being done, because, like everybody else here, I do not want this to happen again. I hope I can reassure the House that the commission has been monitoring the market for several years for potential products that attempt to replicate Football Index. It has intervened in several instances. Although it would not be appropriate for me to name those businesses, that demonstrates the commission’s proactive work in this area.

The hon. Member for Blaydon raised the issue of StocksFC. The Gambling Commission is engaged with StocksFC and is monitoring the company at this moment. I will write to the commission for further information on that product and ensure that everything is being done to monitor it.

[Barbara Keeley]

I want to emphasise the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon made, but I also want to pose a question: what credibility does the Minister think the Gambling Commission has now, given that so many people have lost so much money? As for the commission posing the question of KiX, “Is it gambling?”, if it is based on the Football Index proof of concept and the expertise going into it is from Football Index, it is Football Index mark 2 in a different form. Hon. Members have all outlined how much this was not an investment and how much it was gambling. In fact, questions of compensation are affected by that, in that Ministers have said that taxpayers’ money should not be used to compensate people for gambling losses. So it seems to me that it is a bit of a joke to ask, “Is it gambling?” Do we have to ask that when it so obviously is?

[Stuart Andrew]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but it is important that these things are looked at properly, under the remit of the existing legislation. The Gambling Commission has done a lot of work in this space to try to deal with the grey area that the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) mentioned. I want to come on to that point, because the cryptoasset side of things brings in another area of work.

I assure Members here that I will speak to my Treasury colleagues to highlight this issue, and to ensure that we do not find ourselves in a position like this again and address each of these issues. I am confident that the relationship between the Gambling Commission and the FCA is much improved and that the regular meetings between the two organisations will ensure that there is not a slip again. However, in order to get this right, I am more than happy to speak to colleagues in other Departments to ensure that no cracks still exist.

[Patricia Gibson]

I want to press the Minister: can he assure me that he will go away and look at the suggestion made by David Hammel of the Football Index action group about a route to deliver compensation without having to take it directly from the taxpayer?

[Stuart Andrew]

I think it would be worth more than my life’s worth to commit Treasury colleagues to a policy, but I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I have seen that suggestion and I am sure that Treasury colleagues will have views on it. I will raise that with them and write to hon. Members following their response.

I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. I hope that I have been able to provide clarity about some of the lessons that have been learned from the collapse of Football Index and the action that has been taken by the Government, the Gambling Commission and the FCA as a result. I understand the real consequences that people have felt. This debate has been invaluable for me to ensure that we consider all the issues that need addressing and speak to colleagues across Government so that we do not see this awful situation happen again.