Financial Services UK

  • May 23, 2024

    NY Top Court Revives FanDuel Investors Suit

    New York's top appeals court on Thursday revived a suit brought by FanDuel investors who claim they were deprived of profits from a merger, disagreeing with a lower court's interpretation of Scottish law.

  • May 23, 2024

    White & Case Adds Former A&O Tax Pro In Luxembourg

    White & Case LLP announced it has added a tax partner to its Luxembourg office from A&O Shearman who specializes in international and Luxembourg corporate tax law.

  • May 23, 2024

    Marketer Denies Owing Investors For Flawed Property Scheme

    An investment marketer has denied owing care home investors £2.3 million ($2.9 million) after they sank money into a flawed property scheme, claiming it never said the investments were safe.

  • May 23, 2024

    FSB Spots Weaknesses In Short-Term Funding Markets

    The Financial Stability Board said vulnerabilities used in short-term markets for financing companies need to be addressed because of the risk to the wider financial system in times of crisis such as COVID-19.

  • May 23, 2024

    Investec Sets Aside £30M For FCA Motor Finance Review

    Investec PLC has put aside £30 million ($38 million) as the banking group faces the Financial Conduct Authority's industry-wide motor finance review, according to the company's report for financial year 2024 published Thursday.

  • May 23, 2024

    Trader Denies Using 'Magic Money Tree' At £1.4B Fraud Trial

    Sanjay Shah, a former hedge fund owner who is accused of defrauding Denmark's tax authority out of £1.4 billion ($1.8 billion), denied using a "magic money tree" in his trading at a London court Thursday.

  • May 23, 2024

    Pension Plans Must Get Handle On Data Quality, TPR Says

    Retirement savings plans in the U.K. face increased regulatory scrutiny to ensure that Britain has the best possible standards on safeguarding the personal data of clients, the pensions watchdog has said.

  • May 23, 2024

    Bank Sues Adviser For £9M In Property Overvaluation Dispute

    A U.K. bank has alleged a retail adviser owes it £9.2 million ($11.7 million) for overvaluing a property development and causing it to lend millions of pounds more than it should have.

  • May 23, 2024

    Tech Resilience Regime Ambiguous, European Banks Say

    A trade body representing banks in Europe warned on Thursday that new regulations requiring finance firms to prevent risks arising from cyberattack or systems failure are ambiguous and could create differing approaches to compliance.

  • May 23, 2024

    FCA Fines HSBC £6.2M For Mistreating Customers In Arrears

    The Financial Conduct Authority said Thursday that it has fined HSBC £6.2 million ($7.9 million) for inadequate treatment of customers in financial difficulty. 

  • May 30, 2024

    White & Case Hires 2 Latham Partners In Germany

    White & Case LLP has added two partners from Latham & Watkins LLP with more than three decades worth of experience between them in capital markets to its Frankfurt office.

  • May 23, 2024

    Hargreaves Lansdown Snubs £4.7B Bid From CVC, Abu Dhabi

    The board of Hargreaves Lansdown said Thursday that it has rejected a proposed £4.7 billion ($6 billion) takeover offer from a consortium of private equity companies, including CVC and the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi.

  • May 22, 2024

    Property Transfer For Tax Break Not Dishonest, UK Court Says

    Two liquidated London real estate companies failed to convince the United Kingdom Court of Appeal that their former director behaved dishonestly by transferring their holdings to Jersey trusts for less than market value to obtain a tax advantage, according to a judgment released Wednesday.

  • May 22, 2024

    HSBC Can't Use Brexit To End UK Role In EU Body, Staff Say

    High street lender HSBC is obligated to keep the U.K. arm of its European works council despite Brexit, the representative body for European staff argued Wednesday as it challenged a ruling that the bank could exclude the U.K. once it left the European Economic Area.

  • May 22, 2024

    Ex-Goldman Banker Gets Contempt Sentence Suspended

    A London appellate court on Wednesday chose "the road of mercy rather than justice" and suspended a prison sentence for a former Goldman Sachs banker who breached court orders to hand over information concerning the financial assets of the wife of an imprisoned Turkish politician.

  • May 22, 2024

    Hilco Exec Wins £296K After Being Sacked For Whistleblowing

    A tribunal has awarded a former Hilco Capital Ltd. HR director almost £296,000 ($377,000) in compensation after she was unfairly sacked for blowing the whistle over alleged banking irregularities.

  • May 22, 2024

    UK Gov't Calls Elections For July 4 Despite Poor Polls

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday called an early general election to be held on July 4, advancing the electoral timetable even though his Conservative Party lags decisively behind the opposition Labour Party.

  • May 22, 2024

    City Group Warns Financial Fraud Still Major Problem

    A City trade body for financial institutions said Tuesday that payment fraud remains a major problem, with criminals stealing more than £1 billion ($1.27 billion) in 2023, shifting into growth areas such as mobile banking.

  • May 22, 2024

    Swiss Gov't Adopts Proposals For Tougher AML Laws

    Switzerland on Wednesday approved a new anti-money laundering framework that will introduce a register in which companies and other legal entities in the country will have to disclose information on their beneficial owners in a major shift in its anti-money laundering rules.

  • May 22, 2024

    UK Dependency To Implement Pillar 2 Starting In 2025

    The island of Jersey, a U.K. crown dependency, said it would implement the international minimum tax for large corporations known as Pillar Two, with the law taking effect next year.

  • May 22, 2024

    HSBC Rejects Ex-Football Pro's £2M Loan Dispute

    HSBC has denied losing former professional footballer Matthew Jansen almost £2 million ($2.5 million) by allegedly failing to monitor the risk of loans secured against properties during the 2008 financial crisis, claiming the sportsman could have kept track himself.

  • May 22, 2024

    Chinese Woman Faces Oct. Criminal Crypto Possession Trial

    A Chinese woman and her alleged accomplice are scheduled to stand trial in London in October, charged with criminal possession and transfer of cryptocurrency, a judge said Wednesday.

  • May 22, 2024

    Digital Assets Investor To Return Up To £34M To Shareholders

    Phoenix Digital Assets PLC launched on Wednesday a share repurchase program worth up to £33.7 million (£43 million), a move guided by Fladgate LLP, following the sale of some of its assets.

  • May 22, 2024

    EU Watchdog Seeks New Powers For Markets Regulation

    The European Union's financial markets watchdog called Tuesday for more regulatory powers and a simplified rulebook to improve the bloc's declining global competitiveness.

  • May 22, 2024

    Greenberg-Led SPAC To Buy Safety Biz For $1.85B, Quit LSE

    Admiral said on Wednesday that it has agreed to buy industry safety company Acuren for $1.85 billion, as the blank-check business seeks a slice of the growing and resilient infrastructure inspection sector.

Expert Analysis

  • Operational Resilience Considerations In Financial Services

    Author Photo

    A recent letter from the Financial Conduct Authority reminds CEOs of U.K. wholesale banks of their role in the safety and soundness of markets, but all firms can draw lessons and consider their own operational resilience for longer-term security and commercial benefit, says Richard Tall at Faegre Drinker.

  • UK Tech Cases Warn Of Liability Clause Drafting Pitfalls

    Author Photo

    The recent U.K. High Court cases Drax Energy Solutions v. Wipro and EE v. Virgin Mobile Telecoms indicate a more literal judicial approach to construing limitations of liability, even when this significantly limits a claimant's recoverable damages, highlighting the importance of carefully drafted liability provisions, say Helen Armstrong and Tania Williams at RPC.

  • How The UK Investment Screening Regime Is Taking Shape

    Author Photo

    A recent order imposing remedies on an acquisition by EDF Energy highlights emerging trends in the U.K. government's national security reviews of transactions under the U.K. National Security and Investment Act, and shows how the U.K. remedy landscape compares to the U.S. regime, say lawyers at Arnold & Porter.

  • Consultations Underpin Mandatory Fraud Victim Repayment

    Author Photo

    The U.K. Payment Systems Regulator’s recent consultations on authorized push payment fraud reinforce its June policy expectation, which said that unless there is evidence of gross negligence and the consumer standard of caution has not been followed, providers must reimburse fraud victims, say lawyers at Hogan Lovells.

  • Swiss Privacy Law Reforms Present Divergences From GDPR

    Author Photo

    The differences between Switzerland’s recently reformed Federal Act on Data Protection and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, particularly around data breach reporting and the liability of company officers, will need to be carefully managed by multinationals that may have competing obligations under different laws, say Kim Roberts and Vanessa Alarcon Duvanel at King & Spalding.

  • New Legislation May Not Be Needed For Recovery Of Crypto

    Author Photo

    The recent seizure of cryptocurrency under a civil recovery order raises the issue of whether extended powers under the forthcoming Economic Crime Bill are necessary, with the ability to seize crypto-related items that may be the subject of a search order more likely to be of assistance, says Nicola McKinney at Quillon Law.

  • Opinion

    Russia Ruling Should Lead UK To Review Sanctions Policy

    Author Photo

    The High Court's recent dismissal of the first-ever court challenge to Russian sanctions in Shvidler v. Secretary of State sets a demanding standard for overturning designation decisions, highlighting the need for an independent review of the Russia sanctions regime, says Helen Taylor at Spotlight on Corruption.

  • German Competition Law May Herald New Enforcement Trend

    Author Photo

    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.

  • New Financial Services Act Leaves Few Firms Untouched

    Author Photo

    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.

  • FCA 'De-Banking' Clampdown May Need Gov't Backing

    Author Photo

    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.

  • UK Securitization Reform Opts For Modest Approach, For Now

    Author Photo

    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.

  • Examining PayPal's Venture Into The Stablecoin Market

    Author Photo

    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.

  • High Court Dechert Ruling Offers Litigation Privilege Lessons

    Author Photo

    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.

  • FCA Consumer Duty May Pose Enforcement Challenges

    Author Photo

    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.

  • UK Insolvency Reform Review Shows Measures Are Working

    Author Photo

    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.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Financial Services UK archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!