The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 will be amended, not repealed
HM Treasury’s second consultation on its reform of the UK system of financial regulation closed on 14 April 2011. We covered those aspects of the proposed reforms that are of most interest to Corporate lawyers in a series of four posts in February 2011 and those posts can be read here.
In a recent response (the Response) to the Treasury Select Committee, the Government has confirmed that it is intending to keep to its published timetable for full implementation of the reform programme by the end of 2012. The Response can be read here.
In the Response, the Government has also confirmed that the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 will be amended, not repealed:
“[The] Government has decided that reform of regulation of individual firms will be implemented through primary legislation amending the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), rather than revisiting FSMA in its entirety. This approach, which will involve modifying, adapting, supplementing, and in some cases replacing the current legislative framework, will allow the Government to implement changes more quickly, while minimising the cost and disruption to firms that would arise from repealing FSMA and starting with an entirely new Bill. The Government aims to publish a “consolidated” version of FSMA, incorporating the changes that would be made through the current Bill, to assist the scrutiny process.”
In line with its proposed timetable, the Government intends to publish a White Paper on financial regulatory reform, which will contain a draft Bill to amend FSMA, “later this spring”.
UPDATE 20 June 2011: The Government published its White Paper and draft Bill on the reform of UK financial regulation on 16 June 2011. We give an overview of the proposed regulatory structure as set out in the White Paper in this post of 17 June 2011 and examine what the White Paper says about the Financial Conduct Authority in this post of 19 June 2011.
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