Regulatory efficiency versus fairness

The UK’s Financial Services Authority describes itself as a risk-based regulator. The FSA currently regulates some 30,000 firms and approximately 200,000 individuals. Margaret Cole , Director of Enforcment at the FSA, says the Authority’s approach to its regulatory responsibilities has to be sufficiently flexible to deal with the very different types and sizes of firms and markets that it regulates. Consistent, however, with the FSA’s aim of being open, transparent and direct about the way it does business is the issue of a balance between being efficient and fair. In this edited extract from a recent speech she made at a conference in London on law enforcement, she addresses the issue of whether efficiency and fairness can cohabit harmoniously or whether they are, in fact, irreconcilable.