The proposals form a package of measures designed to promote UK capital raising.
By Mark Austin, Chris Horton, James Inness, Anna Ngo, and Johannes Poon
On 26 July 2024, the FCA published consultation papers on a new public offers and admissions to trading regime to replace the existing UK Prospectus Regulation, and on proposals to establish public offer platforms (POPs) as a new mechanism for raising scale-up capital. These proposals form part of a package
The new regime modernises the listing framework while maintaining robust standards to protect investors and ensure market integrity.
By Mark Austin, Chris Horton, James Inness, Anna Ngo, and Johannes Poon
On 11 July 2024, the FCA released the final rules for the new UK listing regime, which will take effect from 29 July 2024.
This new regime is a culmination of the reform journey that started with the Listing Review in 2021 and which modernises the
Private capital providers, investors, asset managers, and financial institutions will likely continue to face a fragmented regulatory landscape on ESG matters.
By Betty M. Huber, Matthew Green, Henry Miller, Austin J. Pierce, Catherine G. Willis, and Sam Wong
Various US states have taken and continue to take action on ESG investing and other matters, with new variants emerging regularly. Some of the state bills, laws, and actions overlap thematically, and indeed some are based on
The guide enables side-by-side comparison of critical equity derivatives issues across key jurisdictions.
The past several years emphasized the growing importance of strategic equity solutions as part of corporate finance advisory services for both listed issuers and their controlling shareholders. Strategic equity solutions are a range of equity derivatives products, including capital-raising, equity-linked products, structured share buy-back and share accumulation and disposal products, and hedging and monetization products.
Interestingly, the period of the global pandemic highlighted the
Fighting financial crime, protecting consumers’ needs, and bolstering wholesale markets are the regulator’s key priorities for the year ahead.
By Rob Moulton, Nicola Higgs, Becky Critchley, and Charlotte Collins
On 19 March 2024, the FCA published its Business Plan for 2024/25, setting out its priorities for the year ahead. While the Business Plan now takes on less significance than it did historically given other publications in circulation such as the FCA’s 3-year Strategy and the Regulatory
The FCA plans to streamline its approach to enforcement and publicise investigations at an early stage.
By Andrea Monks, Rob Moulton, Nell Perks, Anna James, and Charlotte Collins
On 27 February 2024, the FCA published a Consultation Paper (CP24/2) on its proposed new approach to publicising enforcement investigations and changes to the FCA Enforcement Guide (EG). The FCA also published a related speech given by Therese Chambers, joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market
Recent changes to the PRA’s approach to enforcement show an increased focus on expediting the investigative process and incentivising early admissions.
By Andrea Monks, Rob Moulton, and Anna James
On 30 January 2024, the Bank of England (the Bank) unveiled a number of changes to the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (the PRA’s) approach to enforcement (PS1/24), including the introduction of an Early Account Scheme and Enhanced Settlement Discount. The changes largely reflect the proposals included in the
Implementation of Basel Committee cryptoassets standard to provide additional clarity for banks looking to engage in cryptoassets business.
By Simon Hawkins and Adrian Fong
On 7 February 2024, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released a consultation paper on its proposal for implementing new regulations on the prudential treatment of cryptoasset exposures (Consultation Paper).
The Consultation Paper comes shortly after the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the HKMA issued a consultation paper in December 2023 outlining their legislative proposal for a regulatory regime governing stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong (see this Latham blog post). On 20 February 2024, the HKMA also published guidance on digital asset custody services and sale and distribution of tokenised products conducted by banks. Together, these papers offer guidance and greater certainty to banks interested in providing digital asset services (including digital asset issuance, custody, and dealing services).
This annual publication explores some of the core focus areas for UK-regulated financial services firms in the year ahead. 2023 saw significant progress on the regulatory reform agenda, and many measures consulted on or reviewed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms will be finalised and/or implemented in the course of 2024.
We also saw the passing of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, many provisions of which have already come into effect and have made important changes to the
Critical Third Parties serving the UK financial sector must ready themselves for compliance with the newly proposed operational resilience requirements.
By Rob Moulton, Fiona Maclean, and Charlotte Collins
On 7 December 2023, the PRA, FCA, and BoE jointly published a Consultation Paper (PRA CP26/23 and FCA CP23/30) which proposes a set of regulatory requirements and expectations for critical third parties (CTPs) that provide services to authorised persons, relevant service providers, and financial market infrastructure entities (FMIs). The key aim of the proposals is to manage potential risks to the stability of, or confidence in, the UK financial system that may arise due to a failure in, or disruption to, the services that a CTP provides to such entities.