Financial services investigations and enforcement

Our Financial services investigations and enforcement group comprises a multidisciplinary team of lawyers, including both contentious and advisory technical specialists, and risk and compliance professionals, combining deep legal and regulatory knowledge with practical industry expertise. The group works across all industry sectors and advises at all stages of the contentious regulatory process, from the emergence of potential reportable issues through to enforcement and remediation. The group’s work covers a wide range of different regulators and bodies, including not only the FCA and PRA, but also other regulators and investigatory bodies such as the FRC, UK Listing Authority, Ofgem and the London Stock Exchange, in addition to global regulatory agencies.

Our clients include:

Work areas

Regulatory notifications

Internal and regulator-led investigations

Enforcement proceedings

Compliance reviews

Managing whistleblowers

Redress and remediation

Latest insights

Breadth of FCA’s supervisory power to require individual firms to pay redress confirmed by Court of Appeal in Bluecrest decision

The recent Court of Appeal decision in the Bluecrest case sets expansive parameters for the scope of the regulator’s powers to require individual firms to undertake customer redress exercises. It is essential that all authorised firms, particularly those who may be reviewing historic conduct, take notice of the decision as it may well guide their approach to remediation and redress exercises.

Global | October 07, 2024

FCA in listening mode on ‘name and shame’ proposal

Therese Chambers has given a speech today confirming next steps on the FCA’s proposals to announce investigations (originally set out in CP24/2), following some particularly strong push back from the industry and government ministers (the FCA notes that it received over 130 responses and the regulated community was “overwhelmingly against” the plan). Respondents may be disappointed to learn that the FCA is not abandoning the proposal entirely and clearly wants to change what it views as “the odd situation” of being the odd one out amongst fellow UK regulators.

Global | September 25, 2024

Lloyd’s Consultation on Conduct – Top 5 Takeaways

Following the FCA’s consultation on diversity and inclusion and its survey on non-financial misconduct earlier this year (which is no doubt informing the formulation of the anticipated FCA guidance on this topic), Lloyd’s have issued a consultation on a “modernised approach to dealing with poor conduct and behaviours in the market”, recognising that its current processes for dealing with issues in this area are unclear.

Global | September 25, 2024

Regulators reinforce importance of IT, systems and operational resilience: Key considerations for firms

Recent FCA outcomes and a speech by the ECB earlier this month are stark reminders that financial resilience alone is not a sufficient safeguard to operate in today’s increasingly complex risk environment – firms must have robust, resilient operational systems in place, as well

Global | September 23, 2024

Horizon Scanning: Investigations and Enforcement

In this horizon scan, we focus on key developments affecting companies operating in the UK, including in light of the recent change in UK government.

Global | September 20, 2024

Regulatory intervention: A refresher for firms on issues to consider when managing VREQs and OIREQs

Following recent FCA outcomes in relation to breaches of requirements imposed by the FCA on regulated firms, in this briefing we consider some lessons learned for clients around managing regulatory interventions, with a focus on VREQs and OIREQs.

Global | September 09, 2024