MyComplianceOffice Blog

2020 has been a scary year and there have been a few things that have spooked the most experienced compliance officer. Covid-19 compliance, regulatory updates and deadlines,  and a few large fines and sanctions haunted firms throughout the year. In this blog, we share our thoughts about recent events that unnerved normal compliance operations and should be considered as we move towards 2021.

Why companies are investing in compliance automation in the first place? The automation conversation is being highlighted like never before thanks to the growing interest in the efficiency of compliance activities and the understanding that without technology firms are relying on weak compliance monitoring.

In a virtual conference, Julia Hoggart, Director of Market Oversight at the FCA discusses the challenges posed by the pandemic and highlights that at this stage firms should have overcome these challenges, improved surveillance and risk assessments. The speech is an indication as to where the FCA may focus their attention during the rest of this year and into 2021.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) recently released their Statistical Summary of 18-Month Campaign Activity of the 2019-2020 Election Cycle. The data shows that the 2020 election cycle has so far seen record-breaking political donations across the board.

 This unprecedented level of contributions combined with stringent regulations, low donation thresholds, and past history of strict enforcement actions means that Pay-to-Play compliance needs to be a top-of-mind concern for firms of all sizes right now.

On September 23rd, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a set of outcomes and recommendations on the Market Abuse Regulation. The report has the objective to review the functionalities of MAR since its implementation in 2016 and draft suggestions to improve the regulation. The report is based on a 2019 consultation and covers buy-back programmes, the delayed disclosure of inside information, the usefulness of insider lists, managers’ transactions, the retention period of personal data among other topics.