Regulatory

We provide ongoing advice to our clients on compliance with Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the FSA rules, related UK and EU legislation, and on the rules of UK investment exchanges, and their impact on our clients' businesses.

Our clients are diverse, ranging from large financial institutions and long established players to small firms and new start ups. Our work for them is also varied but we are particularly well known for our technical expertise and industry knowledge.

Our work includes advising on:

• the need for authorisation and the use of exemptions
• corporate structuring
• applications for authorisation
• compliance structures, compliance monitoring programmes
• market abuse and money laundering
• customer and transactional documentation
• advice on financial resources requirement and management of regulatory capital - outsourcing
• trading clearing and settlement
• CFD’s and spread betting

We also draft customer and product documentation, deal with enquiries on financial services law and regulation and provide training on regulation through scenario driven seminars. Our employment colleagues advise on the employment aspects of regulatory breaches, including disciplinary process and whistleblowing.

For more information, please contact: vincent.mercer@speechlys.com or elizabeth.budd@speechlys.com.

Experience

• acting for the shareholders of a specialist OTC brokerage on its sale, including negotiating agreements covering client transfer and stakeholder lock-in
• advising a leading outsourcing services company on its acquisition of a niche stockbroker, we also advised this company on a number of outsourcing arrangements relating to execution, clearing and settlement
• advising an investment business on the restructuring of their business and unbundling its constituent parts to avoid the application of increased financial resource requirement
• assisting an industry association in its campaign on behalf of private client shareholders of a FTSE100 company disadvantaged by a merger. This involved advising on the tax implications of the new arrangement and suggesting alternative strategies as well as advising on issues of unfair treatment and breaches of corporate law
• advising a leading UK consortium investing in a beach resort property on a structure to avoid the requirement to be regulated in the UK
• advising an offshore fund manager of a Cayman hedge fund on arranging its affairs so as to avoid the requirement to seek authorisation in the UK. advising a specialist corporate finance adviser on its regulatory strategy to avoid multiple registration and regulation requirements in a number of countries
• advising a specialist execution broker on client documentation, commercial agreements and establishing a satellite operation in Hong Kong
• advising a leading stockbroker/investment manager on the outsourcing of some of its back office functions offshore
• advising a currency trading operation on UK Regulatory compliance
• advising on the promotion and marketing in the UK of a foreign government bond issue
• advising on financial promotions, including retail products spread bets, contracts for differences and other higher risk investment products
• advising a clearing firm on structuring its clearing arrangements
• advising a leading broker on developing its money laundering policy
• advising a number of Luxembourg banks on the regulation of UK mortgage business including assistance with the preparation of standard mortgage documentation.