UK Financial Conduct Authority Speech on Evolving Approach to Enforcement

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority has published a speech by Therese Chambers, FCA Joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, on the FCA's evolving approach to enforcement.

The FCA is adapting its approach to enforcement to meet evolving threats and maximise the deterrent effect. It has more than doubled its trading data coverage to around 1 billion records per day, and its systems can interrogate data across multiple asset classes quickly. The Cyber Forensics Unit is equipped with the latest technology and expertise to handle complex digital forensic tasks, and the FCA is improving those capabilities all the time. Going forwards, the FCA's approach will be ever more data and technology driven, and Ms Chambers strongly encourages firms to collaborate with the FCA in this.

The FCA is making its investigations faster and more focused. In 2023/24 it took an average of 42 months to close investigations. The FCA has made significant advances already: 24 outcomes so far for 2024, compared to 26 for the whole of 2023. The FCA is focused on identifying cases where it considers that there may be conduct creating the greatest risk of harm, and where an investigation is most likely to drive the greatest deterrence.

The FCA's proposals for greater transparency on who it is investigating and why were also discussed. This autumn the FCA will intensify its engagement with stakeholders. As part of this it recognises the desire for greater definition on any new public interest test. The FCA plans to provide greater detail on how the proposals could work in practice through case studies examining how the criteria might apply and what announcements could look like, as well as more information on the numbers of cases that might be affected. Ms Chambers affirmed that the FCA considers that the case for a degree more transparency remains strong. The FCA's original proposals are discussed in our separate blog post.

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