Islamic finance and ensuring the agreement is upheld in the event of a dispute – what should investors or other parties to an agreement with an Islamic finance institution do to ensure that the agreement is upheld in the event of a dispute? They should: ensure they obtain and fully review the constitutional documents of […]

European Union finance ministers approved a draft law to tighten hedge-fund regulations in the face of objections from the U.K. The proposal, which would impose transparency standards on hedge-fund managers based outside of the EU, was adopted at a regular ministerial meeting in Brussels today. The draft law also would set restrictions on investment managers’ […]

An IFA is taking the FSA to task over the costs of regulation after calculating the percentage of his firm’s hourly rate that goes to the FSA. Sam Caunt, partner at Northampton-based IFA Kingston PTM, says at least £20 of his company’s average £150 per hour rate is due to FSA regulation and to plan […]

The immediate £6 billion cut in public spending proposed by the new Government won key support yesterday when the Governor of the Bank of England overcame his usual reluctance to discuss fiscal policy and gave it his enthusiastic blessing. Mervyn King said the coalition’s deficit reduction plan was strong and powerful and that plans for […]

On 11 May 2010, the FSA published an update on aggregate financial services industry complaints data for the second half of 2009. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/complaints_2009_h2.pdf It has also published a commentary on the data. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Library/Other_publications/commentary/index.shtml The overall level of complaints increased to 2.6 million. This figure includes two years’ worth of back-dated complaints relating to the unauthorised […]

Mercenary sales practices used by bank staff have been uncovered in an internal document leaked by a Barclays sales manager. Customers are viewed as ‘conquests’, with advisers incentivised to sell riskier investments, or more expensive, profitable products, the confidential document leaked to the Daily Mail shows. Persuading a customer to invest their savings in the […]

FOS publishes technical notes on approach to assessing suitability and with-profits bonds – On 4 May 2010, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) published the following technical notes: Assessing the suitability of investments. This note sets out how the FOS approaches cases involving disputes about the suitability of an investment where there has been an advised […]

Consultation Paper on Amendments to the Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1987 as Amended – This consultation paper proposes amendments to the Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 1987 as amended (“the POI Law”). The Commission is seeking comments from interested parties on the proposals in this paper. The proposals outlined in […]