On the threshold – a new enforcement era

Timon Molloy, Editor

FSA keeps criminal powers, flags due diligence and SARs concerns

Change equals opportunity, but not to rest: if any UK compliance professionals secretly thought that with all the shifting about of regulatory agency furniture they might be able to sit back, news that continuity will be preserved, with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and succeeding Consumer Protection and Markets Authority (CPMA) retaining power to prosecute breaches of the Money Laundering Regulations, Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) offences and criminal insider dealing, will have come as a disappointment. In line with HM Treasury’s decision, it may well be, as Margaret Cole, Director of Enforcement and Financial Crime, FSA expects, that “most, if not all, of our staff in this area [will] be in the CPMA.” So, not in the Economic Crime Agency (ECA) then, alongside the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and elements of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT); this should avoid one enforcers’ turf war.