FSA and other investigating agencies agree guidelines on mortgage investigations
04 Oct 2012

The FSA, Office of Fair Trading, Local Authorities Co-ordinating Body on Food and Trading Standards, and the Trading Standards Service of the Department of Trade and Investment for Northern Ireland (agencies) have agreed guidelines to assist their investigations into suspected criminal breaches and regulatory misconduct relating to mortgages.

The guidelines set out broad principles which the agencies agree to apply as appropriate when dealing with cases where the authorities have overlapping responsibilities such as issues of fitness and propriety and breaches of the authorisation and licensing regime. In particular, the guidelines aim to assist the agencies to:

• decide which of them should investigate such cases;
• co-operate with each other;
• prevent undue duplication of effort; and
• prevent the subject of proceedings being treated unfairly.

A copy of the guidelines is available.