On 31 August 2023, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation ("OFSI") published several updates to its Enforcement Guidance. These provide some further clarity about OFSI's assessment of financial sanctions breaches, and approach to its power to publish details of a financial sanctions breach where it has decided not to impose any monetary penalty (a "Disclosure Report"). Read more

The UK introduced restrictions on the provision of legal services to Russia in June 2023 (as summarised in our previous post). Since then, the legal industry has raised a number of concerns about the drafting of the relevant legislation, culminating in the issuance of a new general licence (the "GL") which seeks to address some of the most significant unintended consequences arising from the new restrictions. In this post, we review the provisions of the GL and the remaining issues with these restrictions, as well as providing a round-up of key recent Russia sanctions developments in the UK and EU. Read more

This week, the FSB (Financial Stability Board) published its final set of recommendations for regulating cryptoassets and related services. The recommendations follow on from the FSB’s previous public consultation. The guidelines are designed to provide a common base for international regulatory coverage of an otherwise borderless technology and product in respect of which regulatory development … Read more

The UK Supreme Court has handed down its seminal judgment in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK plc [2023] UKSC 25, considering the application of the so-called Quincecare duty to the victim of an “authorised push payment” (APP) fraud. In an APP fraud, the victim is induced by fraudulent means to deliberately authorise their bank to send a payment to a bank account controlled by the fraudster. Read more

On 10 July 2023, the Chancellor gave his Mansion House speech where he presented a series of ‘Mansion House reforms’. Building on last year’s Edinburgh Reforms, the proposals fall under three themes: improving outcomes for long-term savers and increasing investment in high-growth companies by reforming the UK’s pension market through a series of measures (see … Read more

In its June 2023 Policy Statement on authorised push payment (APP) fraud (PS23/3), the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said that payment service providers (PSPs) would not be required to reimburse customers who had failed to exercise the 'customer standard of caution' (on which guidance is awaited) for APP fraud claims.  This makes sense and is consistent with the regulatory principle that 'consumers should take responsibility for their decisions'. Read more

Just under a year after it was introduced in Parliament, the Financial Services and Markets Bill 2023 received royal assent on 29 June 2023. Hailed as a ‘landmark’ piece of legislation to ‘regain control of the financial services rulebook’, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Act) will also enable the delivery of key proposals … Read more

Tracking the progress of the Edinburgh Reforms In December 2022, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a series of financial services proposals which became known as the Edinburgh Reforms. Together with the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Act), which received royal assent on 29 June 2023 (see our overview of the Act here), the … Read more