In oral evidence before the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee on Wednesday, the FCA gave an update on its 'name and shame' proposals confirming that it is not going to move forward with the proposals as constituted and that it will come back in the next week or so with fundamentally reshaped proposals. Key takeaways as follows:
- No decisions on the proposals have been or will be taken until Q1 2025, when revised proposals will go to the FCA Board.
- The FCA confirmed that it does not want to be offside with industry and accepted that the way in which the proposals were initially communicated was not its finest hour, falling short of its predictability test.
- The revised proposals include changes to both the public interest framework and the amount of notice given to firms about a proposed announcement. Case studies will also be provided.
- In terms of its enforcement caseload: (i) there are 47 open regulated firm investigations, approximately 60% of which are in the public domain already; and (ii) the FCA remains committed to reducing its enforcement case load and case times (having stepped up significantly its supervisory prevention work).
These latest developments demonstrate the impact that strong industry feedback can have on FCA proposals, although of course the proof of the pudding will be in the revised proposals which we await with interest.
The oral evidence recording is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/event/22292/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/.
Our briefing in relation to the original proposals is here: A new approach to publishing FCA enforcement investigations - key takeaways from the consultation.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
