Financial Services UK

  • May 15, 2024

    Watchdog Warns Bank CEOs Of Inadequate Recovery Plans

    The Prudential Regulation Authority told the chief executives of smaller U.K. banks and building societies in a letter on Wednesday that their companies should improve recovery plans, saying that they use insufficiently severe scenarios in testing.

  • May 15, 2024

    FCA Charges 3 For Alleged £8M Pension Fraud

    The Financial Conduct Authority said Wednesday it has charged three consultants over an alleged fraudulent investment scheme in which victims lost £8 million ($10.1 million) of their pension savings.

  • May 15, 2024

    Experts See Risks In FCA's Soft-Touch Response To AI

    The Financial Conduct Authority has so far failed to detail its rules on artificial intelligence and is moving toward a reliance on companies to self-report, putting it at risk of deferring excessively to the sector it regulates, legal experts say.

  • May 14, 2024

    Autonomy Overstated Revenue Before HP Sale, Jury Hears

    Autonomy's reported revenue was overstated by a combined $300 million in the two-and-a-half years before HP acquired it, an accounting expert testified Tuesday in a California criminal trial over claims that Autonomy founder Michael Lynch duped HP into buying his software company for an inflated $11.7 billion price.

  • May 14, 2024

    Christian Org. Staves Off Same-Sex Bias Trial With $120K Deal

    A Christian nonprofit has agreed to pay a Washington job candidate $120,000 to avoid a damages trial on claims it refused to hire her because she was in a same-sex marriage, though it said it would appeal the liability finding against it.

  • May 14, 2024

    Billionaire's Pilot Cops To Tax Count, Avoids Insider Trial

    A pilot from Virginia accused of profiting from stock tips fed to him by British billionaire Joe Lewis on Tuesday copped to dodging taxes on $500,000 of income from Lewis' company, in a plea deal that avoids an insider trading trial.

  • May 14, 2024

    UK Gov't Rules Out NDA Ban In Harassment Cases

    HM Treasury said Tuesday that the U.K. government will not commit to a legislative ban on nondisclosure agreements in harassment cases, rejecting a call from MPs to bring an end to the "abusive use" of NDAs to silence victims.

  • May 14, 2024

    UniCredit Bids To Toss $69M Plane Payment Sanctions Ruling

    UniCredit urged an appeals court on Tuesday to overturn a ruling that it was not reasonable for its London branch to believe it was prohibited from making $69.3 million in payments to three Irish lessors tied to aircraft held in Russia because of Western sanctions.

  • May 14, 2024

    EU Watchdog Sets Anti-Greenwashing Guidelines For Funds

    The European Union's markets regulator on Tuesday published its final guidelines for firms using ESG terms in fund names, requiring 80% of the fund's investments to match the claimed criteria to combat greenwashing risk.

  • May 14, 2024

    Gov't To Add Legal Powers, Staff To Stop Benefits Fraud

    The Department for Work and Pensions said Tuesday it will support new legislation to expand its powers to make arrests and conduct searches in its crackdown on benefits fraud.

  • May 14, 2024

    EU Finance Ministers Strike Deal On Withholding Tax Refunds

    European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to a withholding tax refund law, as previous holdouts Poland and the Czech Republic withdrew their objections.

  • May 14, 2024

    UK Pension Scheme Funding Edges Up £2.8B

    The overall funding level of U.K. pension schemes edged up £2.8 billion ($3.5 billion) last month, according to official figures Tuesday, but experts warned that there was potential "volatility" on the horizon amid uncertainty over whether interest rates will change this year.

  • May 14, 2024

    Repository Denies Withholding Investment Data From Fund

    A securitization repository has denied "capriciously" withholding investment data from an investment fund, claiming that it never received a request for the information and did not know the fund existed.

  • May 14, 2024

    ATM Network Accuses Stripe Of Infringing 'Link' TMs

    The main ATM network in the U.K. has accused Stripe of infringing its trademarks and hijacking its reputation by providing a payments system under the "Link" name, telling a court that consumers associate this branding with the cash machine system in Britain.

  • May 13, 2024

    Irked Autonomy Judge Vents On HP Fraud Trial's Slow Pace

    U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Monday blasted lawyers for the government and two former Autonomy Corp. PLC executives in a criminal fraud case over the trial's slow progress, saying he's "annoyed," but also "complicit" because he "did not take more of a controlling posture."

  • May 13, 2024

    JP Morgan Battles Viva Wallet Founder Over Buyout Value

    J.P. Morgan International Finance Ltd. urged a London judge Monday to reject a payment company's "nonsensical" case over the investment bank's option to buy out its partner's stake in a joint venture fintech business.

  • May 13, 2024

    Barclays Can Keep $148M Russian Swaps Dispute In London

    Barclays has secured a permanent London court order preventing sanctioned Russian state investment company VEB from taking its $147.7 million swaps dispute with the bank away from the U.K. to an arbitration court in Moscow.

  • May 13, 2024

    Warning On Surge In Mortgages Going Beyond Retirement

    Almost half of new mortgages issued in Britain toward the end of 2023 reach beyond the state pension age, figures published on Monday show, raising the risk of an impending retirement crisis.

  • May 13, 2024

    EasyGroup Sues Vehicle Rental Co. Over 'EasyHire' TM

    EasyGroup has hit English car and van rental business Easihire with a trademark infringement claim, arguing that customers are likely to confuse Easihire with its own easyHire brand.

  • May 13, 2024

    Gov't Tells Finance, Law Watchdogs To Improve AML Reports

    HM Treasury and Britain's anti-money laundering watchdog have told professional bodies in sectors including law and accounting to sharpen the focus in their annual reports on failures in compliance and supervisory actions.

  • May 13, 2024

    Demand Grows For Cross-Border Pensions In Unstable States

    Cross-border pension and saving plans have more than doubled in just five years, with much of the growth in schemes covering employees in unstable countries, according to a survey published Monday.

  • May 10, 2024

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    The past week in London has seen Playtech file an intellectual property claim against online casino company OnAir Entertainment amid allegations of corporate spying, a broadcast equipment company sue its former owner amid allegations he conspired to inflate a customer’s finances, and aerospace company Vertical Aerospace hit a manufacturer with a claim following a test flight crash. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • May 10, 2024

    Commerzbank Analyst To Pay £20K After False Allegations

    A financial analyst has lost all his claims of harassment, sexual harassment, victimization and race discrimination at the hands of Commzerbank, as the Employment Tribunal found that some allegations were "pure inventions" and ordered him to hand over £20,000 ($25,000).

  • May 10, 2024

    Costs Of Pension Portals Rise £54M Over Launch Delays

    The cost of building new online pensions dashboards has risen by £54 million ($67.6 million) in three years as the project has faced delays due to poor governance, a damning report by the public sector audit watchdog said on Friday.

  • May 10, 2024

    Ex-Plastics Co. Manager Spared Prison For Insider Dealing

    A London judge gave a former manager at a plastics company an 18-month suspended prison sentence on Friday for insider dealing in connection with the £261 million ($327 million) purchase of a rival company.

Expert Analysis

  • Report Can Aid With Sustainable Finance Disclosure Filings

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    The European Supervisory Authorities recently issued a report on companies' consideration of the principal adverse impacts of their investment decisions on sustainability factors, providing examples of good and bad disclosure practices under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, which firms should note in their future reporting, say lawyers at Debevoise.

  • Protecting The Arbitral Process In Russia-Related Disputes

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    Four recent High Court and Court of Appeal rulings concerning anti-suit injunction claims illustrate that companies exposed to litigation risk in Russia may need to carefully consider how to best protect their interests and the arbitral process with regard to a Russian counterparty, say lawyers at Linklaters.

  • Audit Reform Takeaways After Record KPMG Fine

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    The Financial Reporting Council’s recent £21 million fine against KPMG for its Carillion audit work failures is representative of the agency’s increasing proactivity in policing audit quality, and brings to light the U.K. government’s slow-moving but ongoing efforts to majorly reform audit sector regulations, says Paul Brehony at Signature Litigation.

  • RSA Insurance Ruling Clarifies Definition Of 'Insured Loss'

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    A London appeals court's recent ruling in Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance v. Tughans, that the insurer must provide coverage for a liability that included the law firm's fees, shows that a claim for the recovery of fees paid to a firm can constitute an insured loss, say James Roberts and Sophia Hanif at Clyde & Co.

  • Putin Ruling May Have Unintended Sanctions Consequences

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    By widening the scope of control, the Court of Appeal's recent judgment in Mints v. PJSC opens the possibility that everything in Russia could be deemed to be controlled by President Vladimir Putin, which would significantly expand the U.K.'s sanctions regime in unintended ways, say attorneys at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Navigating The New Framework On Nature-Related Reporting

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    The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ recently published disclosure framework represents a significant step toward the coalescence of nature-related disclosure standards for corporates and financial institutions, and has the potential to influence investor expectations and future regulation, say lawyers at Kirkland.

  • FCA Engagement Signals New Direction In ESG Disclosures

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    The Financial Conduct Authority recently published a response to a consultation on sustainability-related standards, highlighting the regulator's priorities for the U.K.'s green transition, including an early indication that it may turn its attention to nature-based disclosures, say Ferdisha Snagg and Andreas Wildner at Cleary.

  • New Policies Will Aid UK Cos. Accessing US Capital Markets

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    The U.K. government's recent adoption of regulations permitting the use of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, and announcement of measures to remove a 1.5% tax on certain share issues and transfers, should help ensure that England remains an attractive holding company jurisdiction for companies seeking a listing on U.S. stock exchanges, say lawyers at Davis Polk.

  • Key Takeaways From ICO Report On Workforce Monitoring

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    The Information Commissioner's Office recently published guidance on workplace monitoring, highlighting that employers must strike a balance between their business needs and workers' privacy rights to avoid falling afoul of U.K. data protection law requirements, say lawyers at MoFo.

  • Creating A Safe Workplace Goes Beyond DEI Compliance

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    The Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority recently proposed a new diversity and inclusion regulatory framework to combat sexual harassment in the workplace, and companies should take this opportunity to holistically transform their culture to ensure zero tolerance for misconduct, says Vivek Dodd at Skillcast.

  • Asset Managers Should Prepare For Nature-Related Reporting

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    Although it is doubtful that the U.K. nature-related task force’s recent recommendations for mandatory nature reporting will come into effect imminently, it is likely that investors will begin to use them to assess risks and will request asset managers to shift capital flows to more sustainable outcomes, say lawyers at Macfarlanes.

  • What Justices' Cert. Denial Of Terrorism Suit Means For Banks

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Freeman v. HSBC Holdings lets stand the Second Circuit's decision on the narrow scope of conspiracy liability under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, providing protection for banks that otherwise could have faced liability for finance activities with limited connections to third parties' unlawful acts, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Firms Should Prepare For New DEI Reporting Requirements

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    While the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority's recent proposals on diversity and inclusion in the financial sector are progressive, implementing reporting requirements will pose data collection and privacy protection challenges for employers, say lawyers at Fieldfisher.

  • What The UK Digital Markets Bill Will Mean For Businesses

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    The new investigatory and enforcement powers conferred by the U.K. Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill mean that although businesses may be aware of their market status due to existing EU law, they should ensure they are mindful of the changes to consumer law and the implications for digital markets, says Richard Hugo at Burges Salmon.

  • 5 Takeaways From ICO's Biometric Recognition Guidance

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    Recent guidance from the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office is a helpful reminder of key data protection principles and obligations stemming from the U.K. General Data Protection Regulation that organizations should consider when implementing biometric recognition technology, say lawyers at Dechert.

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