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AI Labs · updated 2026-05-26 · methodology v2.1

Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46
What the RLB Specialist Panel found

Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

  • Question (paraphrased to protect IP): Does the Consumer Duty apply to micro-enterprises and small charities? At what annual turnover threshold do charities qualify as 'retail customers' under PRIN 2A?
  • AI's response: > "micro-enterprises and small charities are explicitly captured within the definition of 'retail customer'... Larger small businesses that are neither micro-enterprises nor small charities in those categories would generally not be 'retail customers'"
  • Regulator's text: Retail customer includes consumers (individual persons), micro-enterprises, and charities with annual turnover less than £1 million. Definition varies by sourcebook.
  • Why the AI went wrong: The model confirmed that micro-enterprises and small charities are within scope, which is correct, but it omitted the specific £1 million annual turnover threshold for charities that the FCA's definition requires. The threshold is the operative detail for any compliance team assessing whether a particular charity counterparty falls within scope. Confirming category membership without providing the defined numeric criterion leaves the reader unable to apply the rule.
  • Cited source(s):
  • https://handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/PRIN/2A/5.html — Pretextual
  • https://handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/prin2a — Pretextual
  • Regulator portal (if any cited link is dud): https://www.fca.org.uk
Impact for this audience

Like the Opus 4.7 finding on the same question, this implicates the model's coverage of the FCA's defined terms. Sonnet 4.6 confirmed the category membership correctly but dropped the specific numeric threshold — suggesting the model has partial coverage of the retail customer definition but did not retrieve or apply the complete definition including the £1 million annual turnover figure for charities. This is a precision gap rather than a direction-of-error gap: the model's answer is incomplete rather than wrong, but the incompleteness makes it unusable for compliance purposes.

References — raw findings (per AI model)
← Previous finding Finding on 'Q002 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON Next finding → Finding on 'Q007 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON
Cite this finding

Each finding has a stable Citation ID (RLB-F-… for aggregated case-study findings, RLB-H-… for raw per-model hallucinations) — like a DOI, the ID always resolves to the canonical finding even if URLs change.

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46
Plain text Download 
RegLeg Specialist Panel (2026). "Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON — AI Labs." Citation ID: RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research, published 2026-05-26. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/gb/fca/consumer-duty-ps22-9/whitepaper/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-005--sonnet-46-websearch/
APA 7th edition Download 
RegLeg Specialist Panel. (2026). Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [Hallucination finding RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46]. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/gb/fca/consumer-duty-ps22-9/whitepaper/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-005--sonnet-46-websearch/
Bluebook / OSCOLA (US + UK legal) Download 
RegLeg Specialist Panel, Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46], RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research (May 26, 2026), https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/gb/fca/consumer-duty-ps22-9/whitepaper/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-005--sonnet-46-websearch/.
BibTeX Download 
@misc{reglegbrief_RLB_H_GB_FCA_CONSUMER_DUTY_PS22_9_Q005_Sonnet46,
  author    = {RegLeg Specialist Panel},
  title     = {Finding on 'Q005 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research},
  note      = {Hallucination finding Citation ID: RLB-H-GB-FCA-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-Q005-Sonnet46},
  url       = {https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/gb/fca/consumer-duty-ps22-9/whitepaper/finding/GB-FCA-GB-001-CONSUMER-DUTY-PS22-9-v1-005--sonnet-46-websearch/}
}
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