UK FCA Market Watch 65 Newsletter

Friday, September 11, 2020

On September 7, the UK’s Monetary Conduct Authority (FCA) printed the 65th version of its Market Watch publication on market conduct and transaction reporting points (the Publication). The most recent concern supplies market members with steering on (1) FCA info confidentiality necessities; (2) paperwork topic to authorized skilled privilege (LPP); and (3) highlighting sure information points when transaction reporting beneath the Markets in Monetary Devices Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 (MiFIR).

Within the Publication, the FCA pressured the requirement for companies to maintain info requests despatched by the FCA to the agency strictly confidential and never mentioned with employees outdoors of the agency’s Compliance division with out the FCA’s prior settlement. Corporations that don’t adjust to the confidentiality necessities run the danger of reputational injury and regulatory motion. The FCA urged companies with FCA’s consent to rigorously choose employees in one other division of the agency and inform them to not contact different employees with out informing Compliance, who ought to search the FCA’s approval.

Moreover, the FCA said that materials regarding companies’ shoppers that might be topic to LPP shouldn’t be submitted as an attachment to a suspicious transaction report or market remark as it might be disclosable by the FCA within the occasion of an enforcement motion being taken. To keep away from a possible breach of LPP, studies mustn’t embody materials reminiscent of direct textual content extracts or quotes; nevertheless, companies ought to disclose the presence of such materials to the FCA the place related to the notification.

On transaction reporting, and in reference to its 59th and 62nd editions of Market Watch, the FCA has additional recognized points with the standard of information being submitted throughout the MiFIR transaction reporting regime, together with:

failing to report the speedy moderately than the last word underlying instrument for transactions executed in derivatives;

inconsistent dissemination of buying and selling venue transaction identification codes (TVTICs) by buying and selling venues to funding companies and failure by funding companies to report TVTICs precisely;

finishing the nation of department area when the client or vendor was not a consumer of the agency or utilizing such area to spotlight the geographic location of the client or vendor moderately than the department that obtained the consumer order; and

not having sturdy techniques in place to detect errors in reporting; companies can’t depend on the FCA’s acceptance of a report that such report was correct.

The FCA reminded companies to overview transaction studies and verify their completeness and accuracy previous to submission.

The Publication is offered right here.