Jamie Symington, director in enforcement (wholesale, unauthorised business and intelligence), FCA, has given a speech on internal investigations conducted by firms of their own affairs when things have gone wrong.

The speech includes a number of points of interest:

• the importance of early engagement with the FCA to discuss the proposed scope of the firm’s investigation;
• in an internal investigation, there will be risks to be managed which may otherwise prejudice an investigation including tipping off risk in the case of potential criminal offences; and
• transparency – the starting point is that the FCA expects any evidence produced by the investigation to be shared with it. While the FCA understands and respects the rights of firms to claim and protect their rights to legal privilege where appropriate, firms should not let legal privilege become an unnecessary barrier to sharing documents created during an internal investigation with the FCA.

The speech sets out a number of ground rules that the FCA would seek to establish with a firm carrying out an internal investigation.

A copy of the speech is available http://bit.ly/1NZBJ5F