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New body to tackle fraud in the wine investment industry

Your Money
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Your Money
Posted:
Updated:
14/02/2013

A new self-regulatory body set to transform the growing wine investment industry has joined forces with the City of London police to form a fraud-fighting partnership.

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) will join forces with the Wine Investment Association (WIA), which launches today, to provide better protection for investors and increase consumer confidence.

The WIA has been formed by leading figures from the fine wine investment industry and aims to support the sector’s growth through regulation, establishing best practice and setting up processes to identify fraudulent activity.

Det. Supt. Dave Clark, director of the NFIB, said: “Fraudsters will always follow the money, wine investment is just the latest in a long line of investment opportunities that are being exploited and corrupted to the detriment of the industry as a whole.

“The NFIB see an auditable framework of self-regulation as a real and positive step towards maintaining and increasing consumer confidence and assisting us to highlight those who do not operate to such high standards.”

Following an extensive consultation period, the WIA has set out the standards and procedures to which its members must comply.

Member companies will be required to operate robust systems and controls to prevent fraud and perform highly ethical practices across all areas of their business.

The fine wine investment market is currently valued at US$4bn globally, yet the market is largely unregulated.

In recent times there has been a steady increase in cases of wine investment fraud, malpractice and misrepresentation, where people are duped into buying wines or vineyards that bear little resemblance to what they see in the prospectus, or may not even exist.

 

For more on investing in fine wine – Is it time to harvest returns from wine?


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