Earlier this week, the FCA warned that it would get tough on against insurers that it finds are acting unfairly in paying COVID-19 related insurance claims. This was in response to complaints from small business groups that insurers are deducting the costs of Government grants from insurance pay-outs.
The Work and Pensions Committee (“WPC”) has launched an investigation into pension scams in the UK and what more can be done to prevent them. This is the first part of a three-stage inquiry that will examine the impact of pension freedoms and protecting pension savers.
The FCA has been reviewing temporary measures that came into force in the insurance and premium finance markets on 18 May 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement released last week, the FCA announced its proposal to extend the series of temporary measures designed to help those policyholders, “who may be in temporary financial difficulties because of coronavirus.”
The FCA has been increasingly interested in cryptoassets as their use in the UK has grown. In October 2018, the FCA published a joint report alongside the Bank of England and the Government as part of the UK Domestic Taskforce on Cryptoassets. In March 2019, the FCA commenced research into consumer attitudes and awareness of cryptoassets and following the joint report and the FCA’s research, the Government made a pledge in its March 2020 Budget that it intended to consult on measures to bring certain cryptoassets into the scope of financial promotions regulation.
Following its intervention in the trade credit insurance market back in May, the UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has just announced the launch of a Government-backed scheme worth £500 million pounds for domestic film and TV productions that are struggling to get COVID-19 related insurance. The inability of producers to access such insurance through the open market has had a considerable impact on the ability of the creative sector to fully restart work on productions and filming as lockdown restrictions are eased in the UK.
Yesterday saw the start of the FCA’s high profile test Court case against insurers on behalf of those businesses who have suffered non-damage business interruption losses caused by the COVID -19 pandemic.
In the recent decision of A v B and another [2020] EWHC 1491, the High Court decided that where an auditor is required to provide documents to a regulator, and the auditor’s client asserts privilege over such documents, it is for the auditor to decide whether the documents are in fact privileged and therefore should not be disclosed to the regulator.
Last week we reported on the FCA’s recent success at trial against pensions introducers Avacade and Alexandra Associates with the High Court deciding that Avacade and Alexandra had provided unregulated pensions advisory services to consumers.
The FCA has just provided a further update on the progress of its High Court test case concerning business interruption (“BI”) insurance.
The FCA has succeeded in its civil claim against two companies and three of their directors found to be providing unregulated pensions advisory services to consumers.
