The financial industry ombudservice warned Thursday that it is prepared to start “naming and shaming” the firms that are refusing to comply with its recommendations for client compensation.

The only power that the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) has to enforce its decisions is disclosure. It can’t require firms to go along with its decisions. The service has only disclosed a firm’s refusal once since its inception in 1996.

On Thursday, however, OBSI said that it is going to start making more names public. “After a lengthy process aimed at trying to fairly resolve certain cases, we expect to be announcing several refusals by investment firms in the coming weeks and months,” it said.

OBSI notes that the public naming and shaming of firms, is like a “nuclear deterrent”, which is supposed to work as a threat, but isn’t supposed to ever be necessary. Yet, it is now prepared to reveal refusals to compensate, along with its investigative findings in those cases.

“The cases in question have been stuck at an impasse for a long time, which is unfortunate,” OBSI said. “While we were in a position to have publicized the details some time ago, if OBSI announces a refusal to compensate it is the end of our process. It means that someone, a client of an investment firm or bank, will not receive the compensation they are fairly owed based on the facts of the case.”

OBSI reports that it has taken some “extraordinary steps” in an effort to break the impasse, which have succeeded in many cases. But, in other cases, it says “firms simply have not agreed to compensate their customers for the firm’s own mistakes, liabilities and compliance deficiencies. Having exhausted all avenues to settle these complaints, OBSI is now preparing to publicize the refusals.”

These efforts include: its recent consultation on OBSI’s suitability and loss assessment methodology, which recently resulted in some changes to that process. An expert assessment, which found that OBSI’s methodology is proper, and called for regulators to endorse it. An offer of an independent review of the case files to deal with 21 complaints that were considered to be “stuck”; although OBSI reports only one firm has taken up the offer, and that review is ongoing. And, escalation within the firm.

The group says that it remains hopeful that the cases will get resolved before it announces them as refusals to compensate.