Our team of specialist litigators and regulatory lawyers advise retail and wholesale financial services clients on managing, resolving and avoiding disputes and regulatory action. We combine in-depth knowledge and understanding of regulated businesses and the relevant FSA requirements and processes with significant experience of handling both court and FSA proceedings.

We advise clients in a number of ways, from FSA enforcement actions, investigations and formal disciplinary cases, through to handling FOS work, commercial disputes and large-scale litigation. So not only do we have an excellent understanding of how to deal with FSA, we also know exactly what FSA is looking for from firms in a wide range of contentious circumstances.

Investigations and enforcement

We have represented over 200 firms and individuals in regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings brought by FSA and its predecessors, and at any time are usually handling between six and a dozen FSA matters. Our experience in defending major enforcement actions brought by FSA includes split capital investment trusts, personal pension mis-selling, endowment mortgages, precipice bonds, conflicts, custody, market abuse and, most recently, PPI.

We advise clients through the entire investigation and enforcement process, taking every possible step to protect their position and to achieve an optimal outcome.

FOS complaints

The Ombudsman is now in many ways a proxy regulator. We have assisted firms in resisting over 100 'with implications' complaints made by customers to FOS and its predecessors. Such complaints are increasingly becoming a key area of risk for firms as they continue to raise wider implications that often affect the whole customer base of the firm. Complaints have ranged from limitation and time-barring, capping of compensation, and market value reductions, to equity backing ratios, the interpretation of the complaint dismissal grounds under DISP, and in relation to the split capital investment trusts.

Our experience and knowledge has allowed us to present the client’s position clearly and succinctly, put forward all the relevant information, get on top of the facts and issues, and provide advice to the clients about the wider tactical issues to which these complaints increasingly give rise, as well as the available procedures under the FOS process.

Managing and resolving disputes, including large-scale litigation. 

Our specialist financial institutions litigators are highly experienced and therefore have an in-depth understanding of the commercial and regulatory issues that affect contentious cases. We have extensive experience handling cases that involve credit default swaps, FX swaps, SIV and SIV-Lites, CFDs, breach of fund management agreements, mis-selling of packaged products, ISDA Master Agreements, negligence, misrepresentation and large-scale fraud. We regularly advise our clients in relation to litigation risk issues, particularly arising from client standard terms of business, corporate structure and guarantee/indemnity arrangements, to identify potentially contentious issues and risks long before any dispute is contemplated or escalated.

Our litigators specialise in sectors to service the specific needs of the banking, insurance and investment business sectors, but work closely with each other and our financial services regulatory team, to resource each matter with appropriate specialist expertise. This allows us to achieve a high level of understanding of our clients’ businesses and the regulatory issues that affect them.

Risk management

We work with a number of our clients on identifying and managing risk within their businesses, which includes how to avoid disputes or regulatory action. This can involve reviewing or auditing certain parts/elements of a client’s business, as well as providing bespoke training to meet specific needs. By way of example, we regularly provide training on a number of risk areas including:

• Senior management responsibility
• Approved persons regime
• Preparation for FSA ARROW visits
• Treating Customers Fairly (TCF)
• Complaints handling and dealing with the Financial Services Ombudsman
• Market abuse
• Staying out of enforcement and defending enforcement proceedings
• Reducing the cost of disputes

Relevant experience includes:

Investigations and enforcement

• Acting for a leading fund manager and leading broker during FSA’s investigation into split capital investment trusts. This was FSA’s largest ever investigation and we were instrumental in reaching a settlement with no regulatory findings being made or enforcement action being taken against our client
• Advising a major card issuer in FSA disciplinary proceedings regarding its sale of payment protection insurance
• Advising a leading player in the insurance market on an enforcement action.  We successfully negotiated with FSA to lower the proposed fine, reduce the allegations included in the Final Notice and consequently minimise adverse publicity
• Acting for two fund managers on FSA’s investigation into market timing
• Acting for a high street bank on FSA enforcement action in relation to the sale of precipice bonds
• Acting for financial institutions in FSA’s first major investigation into a failure to maintain adequate controls against financial crime
• Advising a hedge fund manager on the regulatory and insolvency issues following its collapse due to mis-pricing and control failings
• Advising on the first criminal prosecution of directors under section 397 Financial Services & Markets Act

FOS complaints

• Acting on the industry lead case on mortgage endowment limitation where we persuaded the Ombudsman to overturn a highly damaging provisional determination of the “date of receipt” issue
• Acting on over ten further endowment lead cases, dealing with issues ranging from “gone aways” and “market value adjusters” to “surrenders”
• Assisting clients in successfully invoking the “wider implications” procedure so that FSA instructed FOS that certain actions taken by firms in relation to de-risking life funds, or altering their equity-backing ratios, were reasonable

Managing and resolving disputes, including large-scale litigation

• Acting for a fund manager in defending a professional negligence action arising out of the flotation and subsequent management of an investment trust. The case involved important issues regarding the disclosure of FSA investigation documents to civil claimants that were considered by the Court of Appeal.
• Acting for a major UK financial services provider in defending High Court proceedings arising out of alleged negligence, breach of statutory duty and misrepresentation in relation to the performance of certain investment products and the client’s marketing material.
• Successfully negotiating a settlement between two retail banks concerning a dispute on the handling of customers’ mortgage endowment complaints consequent on the sale of a business between them.
• Advising a money market client on resisting various and varied claims brought by customers/investors seeking to recoup their trading losses through spurious claims of negligence, breach of contract and/or misrepresentation.
• Acting for a major UK bank on potential warranty claims under an SPA (relating to a large hotel property portfolio) arising from the sudden and dramatic down turn in performance of the target post-acquisition.
• Acting for an online forex, share and CFD market maker in resisting investor claims involving allegations of breach of contract, negligence and misrepresentation.
• Advising a hedge fund on potential claims against a major Swiss bank in relation to the bank’s alleged misrepresentations concerning the pricing of various CDOs.  The claim was successfully settled.
• Advising investors in relation to a shareholders’ dispute concerning whether trigger events had occurred requiring compensation payments to preference shareholders under a Shareholders’ Agreement and Articles of Association