Back in the Summer we reported on the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (“PRA”) explanation of its approach to enforcment action against those who the PRA think have broken the rules. In a further development last week the PRA updated its policy on settlement of enforcement action (“Updated Policy”), which consolidates proposals in its April 2019 consultation report (CP10/19). It aims to simplify and clarify the settlement procedure and discount scheme.
In previous blogs, we have commented on the threat posed to the financial services sector by cyber risk and the potentially drastic consequences for all participants of a cyber-attack.
Debbie Gupta, FCA Director of Life Insurance and Financial Advice Supervision, spoke at a conference last week about how financial advisers might improve the suitability of their advice to clients and at the same time reduce the risk of client complaints (or at least improve the chances of successfully defending them).
In a recent speech given at the Cambridge Economic Crime Symposium, the Chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Charles Randell, discussed the growing “epidemic” of fraud across the UK, and the need for collaboration in both the public and private sectors to fight more effectively against investment fraud.
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that a jurisdiction clause that elects the English courts in an ISDA Master Agreement prevails when the underlying swap transaction forms part of a wider financing arrangement that is subject to the jurisdiction of the Turin courts: BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA [2019] EWCA Civ 768. Continue Reading
The average prison sentence for money-laundering has increased by 8% in the last year, according to new research. The research by Thomson Reuters revealed that average jail time increased to 27 months in 2018, up from 25 months in 2017.
The FCA has now published its Final Guidance on Cryptoassets (PS19/22), setting out the FCA’s position on how cryptoassets fit within the current regulatory perimeter. The Guidance does not change the scope of regulation of cryptoassets by the FCA, but does provide useful and practical insight into how the regime applies in the cryptoasset sphere which should assist market participants in determining the extent of their regulatory obligations where different cryptoassets are concerned.
The Guidance has been finalised following a consultation on draft guidance issued at the start of the year. We discussed the draft guidance in a previous blog post. The Guidance now published is in broadly the same terms, with a few amendments following the responses to the consultation.
Categories of Crypto-Assets
The Guidance issued by the FCA represents a slight refinement the taxonomy of cryptoasset categories that we have become used to seeing, that of exchange tokens, utility tokens and security tokens. Feedback received by the FCA suggests that one of the difficulties with the draft guidance was in identifying where tokens on the borderline between regulation and non-regulation fell, which has been taken on board in this Guidance. It has led to a categorisation in the final Guidance of the following broad categories:
Which category a given token falls into remains a factual assessment, which needs to be undertaken on a case-by-case basis. The FCA’s response to the consultation noted two types of cryptoasset in particular, stablecoins and Airdrops, both of which are addressed specifically in the Guidance but will still need to be considered based on the particular asset in question. Tokens can also move between categories as they evolve so firms’ regulatory analysis will need to be kept under review.
Possible future developments?
The Guidance noted that the FCA did receive views through the consultation process that currently unregulated tokens should fall within the regulatory perimeter, at least in some capacity. Whilst the FCA noted that such discussions were outside the scope of the Guidance, responses will inform the UK Treasury’s work on cryptoassets and whether change to the scope of regulation is needed.
The responses to the draft guidance also appear to have highlighted the need for harmonising the framework across jurisdictions. Whilst this Guidance only addresses the FCA’s position, the FCA did note the importance of consistent frameworks as far as possible, to reduce the risk of regulatory arbitrage and the creation of problems for firms operating internationally.
Certainly, we should continue to expect further developments in the sphere of cryptoasset regulation and legal treatment. For example, the result of the LawTech Delivery Panel’s consultation on the legal status of cryptoassets, DLT and smart contracts, is awaited soon. Legislative developments may also follow. Whether, and if so how, cryptoassets fall inside the regulatory perimeter may therefore be subject to change. For now though, the FCA’s Guidance is a helpful tool for firms trying to assess whether their cryptoasset activities fall within the regulation.
In a report published last week, the House of Commons’ Treasury Select Committee (“Committee“) recommended that the FCA should be given more powers to help it address the consumer harm occurring in the “grey area” that sits just outside the FCA’s perimeter of regulation.
The Court of Appeal in Simantob v Shavleyan [2019] EWCA Civ 1105 has held that an unmeritorious defence was good consideration for the variation of a settlement agreement, which resulted in payment to the creditor of a lesser sum than the debt due.
At the Financial Services Lawyers’ Association meeting last week, Miles Bake, Head of Legal at the Enforcement & Litigation Division of the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) discussed the PRA’s approach to enforcement, gave an overview of recent PRA enforcement actions/investigations and explained the Enforcement Division’s (ED) future agenda.
