FCA Penalizes Wood Group £13 Million for Misleading Market Disclosures

Key Takeaways

• FCA Enforcement Action: The UK Financial Conduct Authority fined John Wood Group £12,993,700 for publishing misleading financial information in multiple financial results announcements.
• Misleading Financial Results: Inaccurate information appeared in the company’s full-year 2022 and 2023 results and its half-year 2024 results after accounting judgments were influenced by pressure to maintain previously stated performance.
• Control Failures: The FCA found Wood Group lacked adequate systems, controls, and procedures to prevent misleading disclosures from being released to the market.
• Market Fallout: The problems surfaced publicly in late 2024, and the company’s share price fell 78 percent by April 2025 before trading in the shares was suspended the following month.
• Early Settlement Reduced Penalty: Wood Group accepted the FCA’s findings and received a 30 percent reduction in the fine, which would otherwise have totaled £18,562,500.

Deep Dive

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has fined John Wood Group £12,993,700 after concluding the company published misleading financial information in several of its recent earnings announcements.

The penalty follows an investigation that found the engineering and consulting firm failed to exercise reasonable care when presenting its financial results to the market. According to the regulator, accounting judgments tied to underperforming projects were influenced by a desire to maintain previously stated financial outcomes, ultimately resulting in disclosures that did not accurately reflect the company’s financial position.

Those inaccuracies appeared in Wood Group’s full-year financial results for 2022 and 2023 as well as its half-year results for 2024.

For regulators, the issue was not simply the accounting decisions themselves, but the governance failures that allowed them to pass through the company’s reporting process without being properly challenged.

Internal Control Failures Behind the Misstatements

In its findings, the FCA said Wood Group lacked adequate systems, controls, and procedures to prevent misleading information from being published in its financial announcements.

The regulator concluded that the company breached two core obligations under UK listing rules. One requires listed companies to take reasonable care to ensure their market disclosures are not misleading, false, or deceptive. The other requires companies to maintain systems and controls capable of ensuring compliance with their regulatory obligations.

Failures in those areas meant investors received financial information that did not accurately reflect the underlying performance of certain projects.

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

Problems Emerge as Share Price Collapses

Concerns around Wood Group’s financial reporting began to surface in November 2024.

The market reaction was dramatic. By April 2025, the company’s share price had fallen by 78 percent as investor confidence deteriorated. Trading in Wood Group shares was suspended the following month.

The company later restated its financial results for the 2022 and 2023 financial years on October 30, 2025. Those revised figures included material adjustments linked to the accounting issues identified by regulators.

FCA Moves Quickly to Conclude Investigation

The FCA formally opened its investigation into Wood Group in June 2025 and concluded the case nine months later, a timeline the regulator pointed to as part of its effort to accelerate enforcement investigations.

Wood Group agreed to resolve the matter early and accepted the regulator’s findings. That cooperation allowed the company to receive a 30 percent reduction in the financial penalty.

Without the discount, the FCA said the fine would have been £18,562,500.

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