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Financial Services UK
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July 08, 2024
Council's Whistleblowing Investment Head Unfairly Sacked
An English city council official has won his whistleblowing detriment and unfair dismissal claim against his former employer after he was fired for conduct unrelated to his concerns that a fellow director encouraged a contractor to bring legal action against the council.
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July 08, 2024
Audit Watchdog Creates New Monitoring, Digital Functions
Britain's accounting watchdog said Monday it will create two new market functions to support enforcement and supervision as well as digital reporting, driving U.K. growth as part of its response to earlier government-led criticisms.
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July 08, 2024
Reeves Sets Out Plans For Pensions Investing, Fiscal Review
HM Treasury will work to direct pensions investment to British businesses, create a national wealth fund and conduct a fiscal review into government finances, Rachel Reeves said in her first public speech as chancellor on Monday.
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July 08, 2024
Pensions Watchdog To Probe Master Trust Investment Plans
The Pensions Regulator said on Monday that it will be ramping up its focus on the investment strategies of Britian's master trusts to ensure their plans and methods deliver best results for savers.
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July 08, 2024
NIG Sued By Asset Manager Over £4M Fire Destruction
Parker Asset Management Ltd. has sued a subsidiary of U K Insurance Ltd. for allegedly failing to honor an insurance policy after a fire destroyed one of the firm's commercial properties and resulted in a loss of about £4.2 million ($4.5 million).
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July 08, 2024
EU Plans To Cut Some Financial Reporting Requirements
The markets watchdog of the European Union proposed on Monday to combine and reduce regular information reporting requirements from credit ratings agencies, benchmark administrators and market transparency infrastructures.
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July 05, 2024
EU Watchdog Sets Out Sustainability Reporting Expectations
The European Union's financial markets regulator on Friday set out its expectations on new sustainability reporting standards for large companies with shares listed on stock exchanges and their regulators.
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July 05, 2024
Bitcoin Fraudster Gets £1.5M Of Assets Frozen
A London court on Friday froze assets worth over £1.5 million ($1.9 million) belonging to Craig Wright, the man who falsely claimed to be the inventor of bitcoin, to cover the costs of a cryptocurrency podcaster who had to defend against Wright's defamation allegation.
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July 05, 2024
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
This past week in London has seen collapsed sports television company Arena Television hit Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank with a claim, James Vorley, the Deutsche Bank metals trader convicted of fraud, sue his former employer, and journalist John Ware file a defamation claim against Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters and Al Jazeera Media Network. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
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July 05, 2024
Matrix KC Richard Hermer Tapped For Attorney General
Matrix Chambers' human rights barrister Richard Hermer KC will serve as the U.K.'s attorney general in a surprise appointment from newly-elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer late Friday.
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July 05, 2024
Signature Litigation Partner Elected To ICC
An international arbitration partner at Signature Litigation has been elected to the International Chamber of Commerce to represent Ethiopia for the next three years.
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July 05, 2024
Recruiting Co. Fights To Overturn Redundancy Fairness Loss
A recruitment company urged a London appellate court on Friday to overturn a ruling that the company botched a redundancy process when it decided to fire an employee three weeks before the start of the consultation process, arguing that the employee had not pushed for an alternative.
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July 05, 2024
Shabana Mahmood Named Labour's New Justice Secretary
Prime Minister Keir Starmer named former barrister Shabana Mahmood as the Labour government's new justice secretary on Friday following a sweeping victory in the U.K. general election.
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July 05, 2024
Nordea Laundered $4B For Russians, Denmark Police Say
Police in Denmark charged Nordic bank Nordea on Friday with allegedly laundering $3.8 billion for Russian customers, in what could be the biggest violation of the country's safeguards against dirty money.
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July 05, 2024
Starmer Picks Reeves For Treasury To Steer Growth Aims
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has handed the reins of the U.K.'s fiscal and economic policy to Rachel Reeves, formally naming her as the next chancellor of the exchequer in the first of a round of cabinet appointments on Friday.
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July 05, 2024
Starmer Starts Work As Cabinet Appointments Expected
Keir Starmer, the newly elected prime minister, promised change that focuses on the economy and wealth creation as he prepared on Friday to begin appointing cabinet ministers to form the Labour Party's first government since 2010.
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July 05, 2024
Investment Cos. Ask New Gov't To Remove Disclosure Rules
A trade body urged the incoming Labour government on Friday to remove unfair cost disclosure rules for investment companies that put the sector at a competitive disadvantage.
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July 05, 2024
Mastercard Fails In Jurisdiction Bid To Cut Swipe Fees Claim
Mastercard failed Friday to knock out claims worth more than £200 million ($255 million) from a mammoth swipe fees class action after the appeals court in London said the law governing the dispute should be that of England and Wales or Scotland.
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July 05, 2024
Aegon Calls On Labour Gov't To Set Up Pensions Commission
Pensions provider Aegon Ltd. called on the new Labour government on Friday to establish an independent pensions and savings commission within its first 100 days in office after it won an overwhelming victory in the general election.
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July 04, 2024
Labour Gov't To Prioritize Competitive Financial Regulation
The Labour government is expected to step up regulatory change to make the country's financial services more innovative and globally competitive, with centralized oversight of the watchdogs to ensure they help consumers and facilitate economic growth.
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July 04, 2024
Labour's Big UK Election Win Clears Way For Tax Reform
Labour's victory in the U.K. general election clears the way for plans to raise taxes on the rich to close a widening spending gap, but it could also mean wider fiscal reform in the new government's first budget later this year.
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July 04, 2024
Labour Sweeps Tories From Power In UK Election Rout
Keir Starmer was poised to become Britain's next prime minister on Friday after his Labour Party ousted Rishi Sunak's Conservatives in a landslide general election victory, ending 14 years of Tory government with a pledge of "national renewal."
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July 04, 2024
HSBC Wins Appeal Over Brexit Move Of EU Body To Ireland
High street lender HSBC had no option but to move the U.K. arm of its European works council to Ireland after Brexit despite protests from the representative body for European staff, an appellate tribunal ruled Thursday.
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July 04, 2024
WSJ Publisher Dow Jones Must Face Bankers' GDPR Claims
The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones has failed to strike out data protection allegations brought against it by two investment bankers as a London court found the claims were not a tactic to avoid the difficulties of bringing a defamation claim.
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July 04, 2024
Pope Aide Says Vatican 'Trapped' By UK Property Deal
A close aide to the pope testified Thursday that he authorized payments of Є15 million ($16.2 million) to an Italian broker to regain full ownership for the Vatican of a London building at the heart a now-notorious property deal.
Expert Analysis
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German Competition Law May Herald New Enforcement Trend
The recent amendment to the German Act against Restraints of Competition is expected to significantly expand the powers of the German Federal Cartel Office, and could signal a global trend toward greater direct intervention by national competition authorities and political interference in competition law, say lawyers at Simmons & Simmons.
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New Financial Services Act Leaves Few Firms Untouched
The recently published Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, which replaces retained EU law with U.K. legislation, is one of the most significant pieces of post-Brexit regulation, with key practical implications for actors such as investment firms and crypto-asset and payment service providers, say Tim Cant, Emma Tran and Bisola Williams at Ashurst.
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FCA 'De-Banking' Clampdown May Need Gov't Backing
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority’s recent clampdown on unfair bank account closures will give customers greater transparency, but with terms usually skewed in the bank’s favor, it is a policy matter for the government to enact further protections for businesses and consumers, say Stephen Rosen and Jean-Martin Louw at Collyer Bristow.
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UK Securitization Reform Opts For Modest Approach, For Now
Recently published consultation papers from the U.K. Prudential Regulation and Financial Conduct Authorities on new securitization rules mainly restate retained EU law, but there are some targeted adjustments being proposed and further divergence is to be expected, say Alix Prentice and Assia Damianova at Cadwalader.
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Examining PayPal's Venture Into The Stablecoin Market
PayPal’s recent release of a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar may represent a groundbreaking innovation or could fail as others have before it, and policymakers in the U.K. and the EU will be watching the impact of this new crypto token with a keen eye, say Ben Lee and Dion Seymour at Andersen.
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High Court Dechert Ruling Offers Litigation Privilege Lessons
While the recent High Court ruling in Al Sadeq v. Dechert LLP, which concerned torture conspiracy allegations against the firm, held that litigation privilege can be claimed by a nonparty to proceedings, the exact boundaries of privilege aren't always clear-cut and may necessitate analyzing the underlying principles, says Scott Speirs at Norton Rose.
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FCA Consumer Duty May Pose Enforcement Challenges
The new U.K. Financial Conduct Authority consumer duty sets higher standards of customer protection and transparency for financial services firms, but given the myriad products available across the sector, policing the regulations is going to be a challenging task, says Alessio Ianiello at Keller Postman.
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UK Insolvency Reform Review Shows Measures Are Working
The U.K. Insolvency Service's recently published review of legislative reforms to the corporate insolvency regime demonstrates that despite being underutilized, the measures have been shown to help viable companies survive, and with the current difficult economic environment, will likely be an important aspect of organizational restructuring going forward, says Kirsten Fulton-Fleming at Taylor Wessing.
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More UK Collective Actions On The Horizon After Forex Ruling
A U.K. appeals court's recent decision in Forex case Evans v. Barclays is likely to significantly widen the scope of opt-out collective proceedings that can be brought, paving the way for more class actions by prospective claimants who have previously been unable to bring individual claims, say Robin Henry and Tamara Davis at Collyer Bristow.
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FCA Listing Reform Proposals Aim To Modernize UK Markets
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority's recent proposals to reform listing rules will enhance equities while retaining protections and high governance standards, and will also make the capital markets work more efficiently and competitively with other global markets, say lawyers at Greenberg Traurig.
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Takeaways From ICO's Action In NatWest Privacy Dispute
The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office's latest intervention in the Nigel Farage NatWest Bank dispute highlights the importance of the legal responsibilities of all data processors in possession of sensitive information, and is a reminder that upholding bank customers' privacy rights is paramount, says James Kelliher at Keller Postman.
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How The OECD Global Tax Proposal Could Affect M&A
Following agreement on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Pillar Two proposal to introduce a global minimum tax, domestic implementation is expected to have a significant impact on international M&A transactions, with financial modeling, deal structuring, risk allocation and joint venture arrangements likely to be affected, say lawyers at Freshfields.
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How Russia Sanctions May Complicate Contract Obligations
Against the backdrop of recent comprehensive sanctions against Russia and Belarus, a review of recent U.K. case law clarifies that certain force majeure clauses likely cover trade sanctions, and that future litigation will further develop the scope of force majeure and frustration in the context of sanctions, says Frances Jenkins at Quillon Law.
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New Guidance Offers Clarity For Charities On ESG Investing
The need for charities to understand investing in line with environmental, social and governance aspirations has never been more pressing, and recently updated U.K. Charity Commission guidance should give trustees confidence to make decisions that are right for their organization, says Robert Nieri at Shoosmiths.
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US And EU Poised For Closer Ties In Tech Financial Market
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the European Commission are both concerned about the challenges posed by the increasing digitalization of financial products, such as the use of AI and new forms of credit, and by working together, the two regulators can share information and best practices, says Yulia Makarova at Cooley.