Financial institutions

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Briefings in English - 2012

The European Commission has published a green paper consulting on methods of oversight and regulation of entities and activities that make up the shadow banking system. The consultation, together with a public conference on shadow banking, scheduled to be held on 27 April in Brussels, will help the EU develop an approach to ensure comprehensive supervision of the shadow banking sector and contribute to the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) recommendations in this area. In this briefing we outline the proposals in the green paper and what they could mean for the shadow banking sector. (March 2012)

In the administration of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE), the Supreme Court has confirmed that: client money is held on the statutory trust imposed by the FSA’s Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS) 7.7 from the time of receipt by a firm; the money treated as pooled at the primary pooling event (PPE) should be distributed to clients who have a contractual entitlement to have money segregated for them; and the pooling at the PPE includes all client money identifiable in any account of the firm into which client money has been received and is not limited to client money in the firm’s segregated accounts. This briefing reviews the Supreme Court decision and considers some of its implications. (March 2012)

The US Treasury Department has released proposed regulations implementing the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and announced an agreement with five European governments on a framework for information reporting. The proposed regulations should make FATCA more administrable, but some questions remain. (February 2012)

In this briefing, we review the Financial Services Authority’s 2011 enforcement activity and make some predictions about enforcement in the year to come. This briefing was first published on Complinet on 18 January 2012. (February 2012)

In 2011, a number of banking and financial transaction disputes were considered by the courts in the UK. In this briefing, we highlight a few of them by theme. We have, by necessity, omitted reference to some cases involving financial institutions that considered privilege, judicial review of regulatory powers and procedural issues. This briefing was first published on Complinet on 24 January 2012. (February 2012)

The Financial Services Bill was published on 27 January 2012. It is the latest stage in the development of the proposed new UK regulatory architecture. The draft Bill was subject to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny and reform. In this briefing we look at the main changes. (January 2012)

HM Treasury (HMT) has been consulting on substantial UK tax law changes to be introduced in 2013 in two areas relevant to insurance groups. The first is the taxation of controlled foreign companies (CFCs). The existing CFC regime has been blamed for several UK-headquartered insurance groups leaving the UK. HMT hopes that changes to the system will reverse this trend and encourage groups to relocate their headquarters to the UK, as Aon has recently done. The second is the taxation of life assurance business. The current tax system relies on regulatory returns, which following the implementation of Solvency II will not provide the necessary information. The current life tax system must therefore be overhauled. In December 2011 and on 31 January 2012 further papers and draft legislation were published in respect of these two topics. Consultation is ongoing and therefore this newsletter summarises key points, rather than describing the detail of the draft legislation. (January 2012)

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