Financial watchdogs are investigating a discredited insurance and mortgage broker after it emerged he is a director of a Brighton-based company.

George Robert Piggott, 39, of De Courcel Road, Brighton, is banned from giving financial advice and is not allowed to sell mortgages or insurance policies.

The Financial Services and Markets Tribunal ruled Mr Piggott was not a fit and proper person, as required by law, to trade as an independent financial adviser after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) originally banned him.

However, The Argus has discovered Mr Piggott is listed as a director of Redbank Mortgage Brokers, a company registered last year at his Brighton address.

Now the FSA has stepped in to try to determine if he is ignoring his ban and breaking the law.

A spokeswoman for the FSA said: "We cannot comment until we have conducted further investigations."

The tribunal, which sat at the end of last year, found that in his dealings with customers and in the courts, Mr Piggott knowingly relied on forged documents, recommended lying to an insurance company and threatened some clients with litigation and verbal abuse. He also threatened a former employee with physical violence.

The written ruling states Mr Piggott repeatedly failed to carry out instructions from clients and they had difficulty contacting him. Mr Piggott's misconduct related to the time he set up a company called Redbank Financial Services with his father, also called George Piggott, who he later fell out with.

Because of the disagreement, Mr Piggott moved to Brighton in 2003 and the company was compulsorily wound up after a petition by an unpaid creditor.

Mr Piggott applied for a job with Sussex Independent Financial Advisers, which applied to the FSA for approval.

Soon after the FSA started its original investigation, the application was withdrawn.

The tribunal heard that Mr Piggott gave false and incomplete information to prospective employers and to the FSA, including an inaccurate CV, a bogus reference and inaccurate details on applications. Mr Piggott also left behind a trail of unpaid debts.

Speaking after the tribunal had delivered its written verdict, Margaret Cole, director of enforcement at the FSA, said: "One of the FSA's statutory objectives is to secure the appropriate degree of protection for consumers and we take robust action when we discover financial advisers who are attempting to take advantage of their clients' interests.

"Our investigations concluded that Mr Piggott posed a serious risk to consumers and through the information provided by some of his clients we have been able to ban him from undertaking further regulated activities."

Mr Piggott was unavailable for comment last night.