Compliance Monitor

This is the fourth of six instalments serialising the ‘Guide to conducting internal investigations’, on best practices and guidance for those conducting or overseeing investigations in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Here, Jake McQuitty and Charles Hastie elucidate some of the key considerations when approaching and preparing for witness interviews.

When it comes to suitable pension transfer transactions, “The comparison is everything.” Yet, despite the baffling array of new options for pensions brought in by the reforms of April 2015, we still lack reliable comparison tools. Further to our previous coverage [1], Adam Samuel provides the big picture on why pension transfers remain such an important, difficult and potentially toxic subject.

Banks are increasingly turning to alternative ways, other than paper, in which they can communicate with customers. Emily Morton and David Wagget consider how recent legal cases give financial services firms guidance on satisfying the ‘durable medium’ test in the current technological context.

The Financial Conduct Authority has now published three consultation papers and its first set of “near final” rules for implementation of the Insurance Distribution Directive – which firms must comply with from 23 February 2018. Juanita Morrison and Davinia Collins focus on the FCA’s second CP and what the regulator’s proposals could mean for firms.

“[I]f you aint cheating, you aint trying,” a Barclays foreign exchange trader infamously shared in an electronic chat of November 2010. Since the FX benchmark manipulation scandal, regulators in multiple jurisdictions have clamped down on controls around setting of interbank rates. Now, a new code supersedes and updates existing guidance, reports Kim Potts.

Although the Financial Conduct Authority’s July policy statement [1] relented on its proposed MiFID II taping requirements for financial advisers – by allowing analogous notes as an alternative – the rules are a significant challenge for entities that are in scope for the first time. Dave Millett sets out the options for relevant firms to record telephone and electronic communications in relation to transactions in financial instruments.