Our Commitment To You

At Sapphire, we are dedicated to providing you with the best possible service at all times. Should you feel that any aspect of our business has not fulfilled your expectations, please allow us the opportunity to put things right. Please note that we are required by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to report to them all complaints made to the firm.

The Financial Ombudsman Service

Our affiliation to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) ensures that any investigation will be fair and impartial and that every effort will be made to reach a speedy and satisfactory conclusion. For further information regarding the FOS, there is an explanatory leaflet entitled Want to take your complaint further? which can be obtained from Sapphire. For further information, call our Belfast office on 028 9059 7213 or write to the following address: Sapphire Capital Partners LLP, 28 Deramore Park, Malone, Belfast BT9 5JU.

Making a Complaint

Your complaint can be made by letter, email, telephone, or visit - it does not have to be in writing. Once your complaint has been received, written confirmation, including the contact details of the person dealing with your request, will be sent to you within three business days. If the complaint has been remedied within this time frame, written confirmation will be sent to you. This will not contain the detail of a final response (please see below). If we cannot resolve your complaint within three business days, the FCA will allow us eight weeks to investigate the matter (please see below).

The Process

The details of your complaint will be thoroughly examined by the appropriate person, who will seek guidance or assistance if they have any uncertainty about the accuracy of the evidence and information they are dealing with. A decision will be made to continue the investigation or send you a final response.

FCA Definitions of Eligible Complaints

Whether you are (or were previously) a client of Sapphire, a potential client, or if you are acting as a representative/agent for a current or previous client, your complaint must be in accordance with the FCA definitions. The complaint must allege that there has been, or will be, any of the following:

• • Financial loss
• • Material distress
• • Material inconvenience 
  Eligible Complainants 
• • A consumer
• • A micro-enterprise
• • A charity with an annual income of less than £6.5m
• • A trustee of a trust with a net asset value of less than £5m
• • A small business

Timescale

Should the investigation still be ongoing after four weeks, we will inform you in writing; this is known as a holding response. This will explain why an outcome is not yet possible and when further contact will be made.

The Final Response

We are obliged to inform you of our conclusions, in writing, within eight weeks of receiving your complaint. This is known as a final response and will include one of the following explanations: Sapphire may conclude that the evidence does not support the complaint and rule that no further action concerning your complaint is necessary. Where the evidence does support your complaint, Sapphire will decide whether some form of redress is appropriate. This will vary depending on the circumstances and merits of each individual case and may not involve financial restitution. Where responsibility has been accepted for any acts or omissions, you will receive fair compensation. This will be set out in our final response, and upon acceptance of any compensation by you, we will act on our offer as quickly as possible.

The Financial Ombudsman Service

If you are dissatisfied with our final response, or if we cannot complete our investigation into your complaint within eight weeks, then your complaint may be referred to the FOS but must be done so within six months of the date of our final response. We will forward you a copy of the FOS explanatory leaflet, copies of which are available from Sapphire by request.

Please note that we reserve the right not to permit the FOS to investigate any complaint referred to them outside the six-month deadline. The FOS website address is https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ and the telephone number is 0800 023 4567.

A copy of the Financial Ombudsman Service leaflet can be obtained here: https://financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/how-to-complain