Will COCON transform financial services conduct?

New conduct rules, which came into force on 7 March 2017, have extended personal regulatory duties to almost all employees of banks and are poised to be applied more widely still. But will they tackle the drivers of past failure to take effective enforcement action against the existing rules? Adam Samuel fears that the regime may in fact “exacerbate the accountability firewall”.

Adam Samuel BA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted at adamsamuel@aol.com. His book, ‘Complaints and Compensation: a Guide to the Financial Services Market’, is available from his website, www.adamsamuel.com.

We have been there before. In the early days of the Financial Services Authority, it was ARROW that was going to make the regulator far more effective at understanding risk within businesses. Then, it was the Approved Persons Regime that would make senior managers accountable for their behaviour. The most recent magic bullet rulebook is the Code of Conduct (COCON).