The Court of Appeal decision of 25 October 2024 involving FirstRand/Motonovo and Close Brothers was of major significance to the topic of broker commissions in the motor finance sector. However, a key question was whether the development of the common law in the case was also relevant to other financial structures involving payments to brokers or other intermediaries – not just in the motor finance sector but more generally. In addition to the broader implications of the case, we also considered some of its uncertainties, the impact on existing commission arrangements and whether a different approach to new commission arrangements was required. With expert input from Kate Urell and Stephen Neville, two members of Gough Square Chambers, a leading consumer law and finance set.

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalised rules that required the central clearing of certain secondary cash market and repo transactions for US Treasuries. Additionally, the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) had recently proposed rules that sought to implement the SEC's Treasury clearing rules. US Treasuries played an important role in the global financial system, and the new rules impacted the structure and global liquidity of the US Treasuries market. In that session, an overview of the key changes was provided, along with the impact they would have and the steps market participants would have to take to implement the changes.

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In this webinar, our international panel explored questions and covered areas such as bank supervision, the future of ring-fencing, the adequacy of liquidity and concentration risk rules, the role of deposit guarantees, how bank run risk develops and how recent events may alter the way in which bank regulators act.

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MiCA establishes a broad regulatory framework for cryptoassets in the EU which, among other things, introduces licensing of cryptoasset service providers including operators of trading platforms for cryptoassets. On this call we outlined the new requirements that exchanges and brokers for digital assets should be aware of, including disclosure and governance requirements.

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MiCA will regulate the issuance and offering of cryptoassets including certain stablecoins to the public in the EU. On this call, we outlined the new requirements that potential issuers of cryptoassets and stablecoins should be aware of, including the introduction of licensing for issuers and location, disclosure and governance requirements.

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MiCA establishes a broad regulatory framework for cryptoassets in the EU which, among other things, introduces licensing of cryptoasset service providers including custodians. On this call, we outlined the new requirements that existing and new custodians of digital assets should be aware of, including custody liability requirements and new consumer protection rules.

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MiCA establishes a broad regulatory framework for cryptoassets in the EU, introducing licensing of cryptoasset service providers and issuers of cryptoassets, including certain stablecoins and clarifying the regulatory obligations applicable to them. On this call, we gave an overview of the new framework and how affected firms should be assessing appropriate licensing requirements for their business now.

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On this webinar, our panel provided an overview of the consumer duty for investment and market firms and discussed some of the key issues that these firms are facing as they begin to implement the consumer duty. This included planning implementation projects and determining the extent to which activities are within the scope of the consumer duty when they are not performed directly for a retail client.

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On this webinar, our panel discussed some of the key issues that banks and payment firms are facing as they begin to implement the consumer duty. This included planning implementation projects and determining the extent to which activities are within the scope of the consumer duty when they are not performed directly for a retail client.

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Since the end of the transition period, UK and EU financial services regulatory regimes have continued to evolve and increasingly diverge. In many instances, this is simply because the UK and EU are pursuing the same policy objectives but tailoring the implementation of those objectives to their respective populations, economies and markets, for example, in relation to the climate-related measures. In other instances, the differing evolution of UK and EU financial services regulation reflects differing agendas. In the future, the UK's proposed Financial Services and Markets Bill aims to establish a new framework for UK financial regulation in the post-Brexit landscape to harness the benefits from leaving the EU single market in financial services.

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