Financial Services Bill

George A Walker, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, London

The Government brought forward a further Financial Services Bill on 19 November 2009. This was provided for in the Queen’s Speech. The Bill is generally designed to improve the oversight of system-wide risks, deliver more effective regulation and supervision, ensure that remuneration policies are transparent and appropriate, provide additional protection to consumers and correct certain other perceived failures in the current regulatory system within the UK. The Bill generally supports the regulatory framework set up under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) although it reforms and extends this in a number of respects. The Government has separately brought into effect the Banking Act 2009 to allow for the effective resolutions of banks in distress. A number of the measures contained in the Bill were provided for in the Treasury’s paper on Reforming Financial Markets in July 2009[1]. The July 2009 paper was based on stronger market discipline, better regulation, managing failure and better market infrastructure.