The FCA has published Handbook Notice 7, setting out changes made to the FCA Handbook under instruments made by the FCA Board on 12 and 16 December 2013. The FCA has made six such instruments in order to transpose the CRD IV package of reforms.
View Handbook Notice No 7, 16 December 2013
Four pension fund advisors have been sanctioned by the FCA for inappropriate behaviour.
Michael Conway, a former director of CBW Trustees (CBW), a financial planning firm appointed as corporate trustee to six distressed pension funds, was banned from working in the financial services. Mr Conway personally received £2.1 million to the detriment of these six pension schemes. Mr Conway was paid commissions by constructing artificial referral agreements with independent IFAs. These funds were paid to Mr Conway in the guise of commissions from the IFA, G&G Financial Services (G&G), hired to provide CBW with independent advice on how to invest the pension schemes’ assets. Mr Conway showed a lack of integrity and is therefore not a fit and proper person to perform any function in relation to regulated activities carried on by any authorised person, exempt person or exempt professional firm.
HM Treasury has published an update on the transitional arrangements relating to the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). Following concerns raised by a wide range of stakeholders, HM Treasury is intending to amend the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Regulations 2013 to provide that, if a transitional alternative investment fund manager’s (AIFM) application for authorisation
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has updated its table showing the state of play of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) signed by Member State regulatory authorities with non-EU regulators worldwide in respect of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). The AIFMD MoUs are co-operation agreements that allow the exchange of information between EU
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a questions and answers paper on risk measurement and calculation of global exposure and counterparty risk for UCITS.
The questions and answers are set out under the following headings:
The FCA has published a supplement to Consultation Paper 13/14: Regulatory fees and levies: policy proposals for 2014/15 (CP13/14) to make revised proposals for consumer credit application fees.
In the supplement, the FCA presents an amendment to the proposed application fees for firms seeking full consumer credit permissions that it originally set out for consultation
The European Central Bank (ECB) recast guideline of 26 September 2013 on a trans-European automated real-time gross settlement express transfer system has been published in the Official Journal of the EU. The ECB previously recast the guideline in December 2012. The guideline was originally published in April 2007 and following amendments has been recast to
The Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU has issued a press release stating that it has reached preliminary political agreement with the European Parliament on the Regulation on improving securities settlement in the EU and on central securities depositories, pending technical finalisation.
View Lithuanian Presidency reaches political agreement on the Regulation on CSDs
The European Commission has published an updated version of its frequently asked questions on the European Market Infrastructure Regulation.
Two of the latest additions are set out in section 2 and concern:
The European Parliament has updated its procedure file on the proposed Regulation on improving securities settlement and central securities depositaries. The procedure file now indicates that the Parliament will consider the legislative proposal during its 13 to 16 January 2014 plenary session instead of 10 to 13 March 2014 as it originally intended.
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