We are reporting on the main issues arising from Consultation Paper 16/10: Proposed Implementation of the Enforcement Review and the Green Report, and publishing final amendments to the FCA’s Glossary, the Decision Procedure and Penalties manual and the Enforcement Guide.
In this Policy Statement (PS) the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) respond to comments we received on our Consultation Paper (CP) 16/10: Proposed Implementation of the Enforcement Review and the Green Report and explain what changes we are going to make to our enforcement policies and processes.
We received 13 responses to CP16/10. We have incorporated the feedback received from the CP into the changes to the FCA Handbook. We explain these changes in the remaining chapters of this PS. The final changes to the Decision Procedure and Penalties manual (DEPP) and the Enforcement Guide (EG) are set out in Appendix 1.
Who this applies to
This Policy Statement will be of interest to all firms and individuals involved in providing financial services as it builds on our existing statements about our use of enforcement powers. It will be of particular interest to all firms and individuals (and their professional advisers) that are, or which anticipate that they are likely to be, subject to FCA and/or PRA investigation.
As we noted in CP16/10, the changes to DEPP and EG do not directly affect consumers. However, they concern the transparency of the FCA’s approach to enforcement decision-making and its enforcement process, and may therefore be of general interest to consumers.
Next steps
Our proposals which have not already been put into practice will be implemented by the amendments to EG and DEPP presented in Appendix 1. Two proposals will come into effect on 1 March 2017:
- the introduction of partly contested cases, and
- the abolition of stage 2 and 3 discounts to penalty in settlement
In 2017, the PRA intends to issue a policy statement following on from its consultation on the establishment of the Enforcement Decision Making Committee and a short guide to the PRA’s enforcement processes.