Neil Woodford faces FCA action over his subscription investing site

The financial regulator will take legal action against disgraced stock picker Neil Woodford almost seven years after the collapse of his flagship fund. 

The Financial Conduct Authority said it had started civil proceedings against the former fund manager and the subscription-based platform W4.0 for operating without authorisation. 

Woodford launched W4.0 last year, just months before he was handed a multimillion-pound fine by the FCA, which also banned him from holding funds for retail investors following the 2019 collapse of his flagship fund.

Woodford maintained that subscribers to W4.0, which offers investors an insight into his contrarian investment views, were ‘not investing in a fund’ and it was not a trading platform.

‘We don’t hold or manage your money, and we don’t give personalised advice. 

‘Instead, we offer structured investment strategies, expert commentary, and tools to help you make informed decisions,’ the website says. ‘You decide what to track and if or when to act.’

But the FCA claims Woodford and the platform are offering regulated investment advice and making unlawful financial promotions without authorisation.

The regulator is seeking an injunction ‘to stop them carrying on the potentially unlawful activities’, saying that it breaches Sections 19 and 20 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

It comes seven years after more than 300,000 investors were left with around £3.7billion stuck in the Woodford Equity Income fund in one of the UK’s biggest retail investment scandals.

In August 2025, the FCA said Woodford had made ‘unreasonable and inappropriate investment decisions’ before his fund collapsed, handing him a £5.9million charge and his company with a £40million penalty.

In 2019, Woodford had made a series of large bets on highly illiquid investments and was unable to meet withdrawal requests from investors concerned about exposure to unlisted companies in the fund.  

The regulator said his ‘lack of competence, capability and reputation’ meant he was ‘not a fit and proper person’ to hold senior management roles or control retail funds.