Welcome to the Summer 2021 edition of our corporate crime update – our round up of developments in relation to corruption, money laundering, fraud, sanctions and related matters. Our update now covers a number of jurisdictions.
Tag: UK
A Guide to FCA Policy Statements and Final Consultation on IFPR and A Guide to the MIFIDPRU Remuneration Code
With just four months to go until the start of the Investment Firms Prudential Regime (IFPR) on 1 January 2022, the FCA has recently published policy statements to its first two consultations on the IFPR, PS21/6 and PS21/9. Published in June and July 2021, respectively, the policy statements summarise the feedback on the earlier consultations, CP20/24 and CP21/7, and set out the FCA’s response and near-final rules. The FCA also published its (third and) final consultation paper on the IFPR, CP21/26, on 6 August 2021. The final policy statement and rules will be published in Q4 2021. Continue reading
UK, US and Canada impose additional sanctions on Belarus
On 9 August 2021, the UK, US and Canadian governments announced the imposition of additional sanctions on Belarus. These new measures follow the coordinated imposition of sanctions against Belarus by the EU, UK, Canada and the US in June 2021. Continue reading
European Commission announces new EU AML Package
On 20 July 2021, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced a package of four legislative proposals (the “Package”) to strengthen its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (“AML/CFT”) rules (see the full press release here). Continue reading
Driving Meaningful Change in Diversity and Inclusion in the Financial Sector – The Regulators’ Proposals
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) has featured heavily in speeches by our UK regulators in recent months. The FCA, PRA and Bank of England (the regulators) have now published a discussion paper (DP21/2) which aims to kick-start discussion on how the financial services sector, with the help of the regulators, can “accelerate the pace of meaningful change” in improving D&I within financial services firms. Continue reading
The collapse of the SFO’s prosecution of former Serco executives: lessons for corporates
On 26 April 2021, the prosecution by the Serious Fraud Office (the “SFO“) of fraud charges against two former directors of Serco Geografix Limited (“Serco“) collapsed. The SFO offered no evidence against the defendants, and the presiding judge directed the jury to return verdicts of not guilty. This happened after it became apparent that the SFO had failed to disclose to the defendants certain relevant materials, rendering it unsafe for the prosecution to proceed. The SFO’s statement on the matter confirmed that it was “considering how best to undertake an assessment to prevent this from happening in the future”. Continue reading
March 2021: The month ahead in financial services regulatory developments…
In this blog post, we round-up forthcoming developments in the UK and at EU and International levels in financial services regulation which are expected for March 2021.
Operational Resilience: respond, enhance, thrive
Operational resilience is the next phase in the evolution of financial services regulatory policy.
Regulators’ expectations are increasing – but it’s an evolution rather than a revolution; firms – more specifically firms’ senior managers – must “join the dots” across a range of practical risk management and governance activities.
To help keep you up to date on the upcoming regulatory expectations, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new #OperationalResilience hub. Continue reading
PRA publishes Proprietary Trading Review: no need for new restrictions
The PRA has published its Proprietary Trading Review (the Review) pursuant to section 9 of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 (the 2013 Act). Continue reading
Court of Appeal confirms borrower’s right to withhold payment under English law Tier 2 Capital facility agreement where risk of US secondary sanctions
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that the terms of an English law facility agreement in respect of Tier 2 Capital, allowed the borrower to withhold payment of interest instalments where there was a risk of secondary sanctions being imposed on the borrower under US law. In the view of the Court of Appeal, this result effectively balanced the competing interests of the lender to be paid timeously against the borrower’s ability to delay making a payment where it would be illegal (in a broad sense of the word, and under a different system of law to the facility agreement) and therefore affect the borrower’s ability to conduct its ordinary business: Lamesa Investments Limited v Cynergy Bank Limited [2020] EWCA Civ 821. Continue reading