MCO has partnered with CeFPro to deliver a complimentary Webinar to discuss FCA compliance to Market Abuse Regulation: Identifying conflicts to prevent market abuse.
The Market Abuse Regulation states that firms must take all appropriate steps to identify and prevent or manage conflicts of interest between the firm’s employees, managers, and clients. The regulation was created to make financial markets safer and transparent and further maintain market integrity, increase investor protection and encourage global cooperation.
In 2020, a variety of compliance issues and conflicts of interest were raised due to the current crisis and market uncertainty. The FCA, for example, has been issuing several warning notices to firms, so they can understand the types of behaviour that the FCA considers unacceptable at an earlier stage, which in turn should encourage more compliant behaviour and the correctly monitoring of employee’s activities. In addition, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a set of outcomes and recommendations on the Market Abuse Regulation concluding that the regulation was effective and worked well in its 4 years of implementation. The ESMA report and recommendations covers several aspects of the regulation, including the delayed disclosure of inside information, the usefulness of insider lists, managers’ transactions, among other topics.
The current FCA regulatory focus is to make sure firms have the ability to identify and prevent conflicts of interest. The FCA emphasises that, during and after the pandemic, it would continue to monitor, make enquiries, investigate and if necessary, take enforcement action to protect the market. In early April, the FCA revealed that several investigations were under way, and recently published a decision note seeking to fine and ban WSL former CEO for illegalities under the Market Abuse Regulation.
A recently published map on the administrative and criminal sanctions imposed under Articles 14 and 15 of MAR, reveals that in four years overall eight administrative sanctions and measures were imposed in Belgium, thirty in Bulgaria, eight in France, ten in Greece and sixty-one in Netherlands. Since the regulation started, in 2016, firms have noticed pressure from regulators and an increase on the number of investigations and sanctions.
In this webinar, we will discuss the FCA expectations on the management of conflicts of interest on how compliance can be enhanced to prevent insider dealing, misuse of MNPI, personal account dealing, and illegal short-selling with better systems and controls.
Key agenda topics include:
- Identifying and Preventing Conflicts of Interest
- Types of Conflicts and real cases example
- Identification and Disclosure of Insider Information
- Personal Account Dealing and PAD policy under FCA Rules
- Pressure from the FCA to manage PAD in practise.
- Practical challenges
- Q&A Session
Watch the webcast
Speakers:
Sophie Dupre-Echeverria, Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, Gulf International Bank
William Yonge, Partner in Financial Services, Morgan Lewis
Keith Pyke, Director Solution Sales, MCO
