Listed company fined £13m by FCA over misleading statements

The FCA has fined John Wood Group £12,993,700 for publishing inaccurate information in its financial results.

The regulator's investigation found that following the poor performance of certain projects, Wood Group’s accounting judgements were "inappropriately influenced by its desire to maintain previously stated financial results". 

The FCA says the engineering and consulting company did not have adequate systems, controls or procedures to prevent this from happening.

This resulted in Wood Group publishing inaccurate information in its full-year 2022 and 2023 financial results and its half-year 2024 results. The company failed to take reasonable care to ensure that its announcements about those results were not false or misleading, the FCA found.

These issues came to light from November 2024 onwards. Wood Group’s share price fell by 78% by April 2025 and its shares were suspended in May 2025.

The Group has since announced a £216 million takeover by Sidara, a Lebanese engineering group.

Wood Group accepted the findings and so qualified for a 30% reduction in its financial penalty. Without this discount, the FCA would have imposed a financial penalty of £18,562,500.

Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Investors rely on accurate information to make decisions. Wood Group failed to provide this and fell well short of the high standards we expect of listed companies.”