Financial services firms need to conduct proper risk assessments on their businesses to avoid being caught up in regulatory "snowballs", according to a senior UK lawyer. Martin Saunders, a litigation and investigations partner at Clifford Chance, said that it was very important for firms to establish which areas of their business might present risks, before these turned into regulatory issues. Speaking on a Clifford Chance webinar yesterday Saunders said that regulatory action tended to follow trends, which often then snowballed as the regulator began to make examples of firms. Saunders said that Britain's Financial Services Authority and its successor the Financial Conduct Authority had and would continue to target firms for systems and controls issues. "Policies and procedures need to be right," he said. He said that the regulator had disciplined many firms for not having appropriate systems and controls in place. Recent action taken by the FCA against EFG Private Bank for poor
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