<\/p>\n
Jonathan Cavill<\/a> and Anthony Harrison<\/a> of Pinsent Masons, who support financial services firms with contentious regulatory cases, investigations and remediation, were commenting after the FCA confirmed<\/a> that its enforcement unit opened 33 new operations in the financial year 2025\/26 ended 31 March, compared to 23 in 2024\/25. Those operations can cover regulatory or criminal investigations, or a mix of the two, as well as civil proceedings.<\/p>\n The FCA said 75% of its enforcement work focuses on fighting financial crime and at least half of its operations involve investigating potential criminal offences.<\/p>\n Cavill said: \u201cAlthough there is a focus on prompt enforcement action in a limited number of investigations, the FCA’s remit is widening, to include claims management company investigations and novel issues around cryptoassets, for example. This means early settlement is likely to be attractive to the FCA if there is a saturated enforcement workload.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the increase in new cases, the FCA data shows that, for the operations it closed during 25\/26, the regulator took enforcement action in fewer cases \u2013 20 \u2013 compared to the year before, when it took enforcement action in 34 cases. The number \u2013 and total value \u2013 of financial penalties it levied fell year-on-year too, as did the number of final notices it served and prohibitions it imposed. However, the FCA secured more than three times the number of criminal convictions in 25\/26 \u2013 17 \u2013 than the five recorded for 24\/25.<\/p>\n Most of the enforcement work undertaken by the FCA does not involve formal investigations or sanctions addressing backwards-looking failures by firms. Rather, it is focused on intervention to identify harm early and ensure corrective action is taken.<\/p>\n According to the data, the FCA opened 265 new intervention cases in 25\/26, up from 260 in 2024\/25. The interventions team supported 137 outcomes in 2025\/26, the bulk of which involved firms meeting voluntary requirements (92) or making undertakings (25) to the regulator. In 10 cases, known as \u2018own initiative\u2019 cases, the FCA used formal powers without the agreement of the firm or individual to achieve the outcomes.<\/p>\n One of the tools the FCA can use to understand whether firms are meeting their compliance obligations is to trigger a \u2018skilled person review\u2019 \u2013 an independent expert assessment of a firm and its operations \u2013 using powers it has under Section 166 (s166) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.<\/p>\n Earlier this summer, Rathbones disclosed<\/a>\u00a0that the FCA had exercised its powers to commission a \u2018skilled person review\u2019 into its business. However, data on the use of skilled person reports<\/a> shows an overall reduction in their use by the FCA in 25\/26. The FCA used its skilled person powers in 31 cases during the year, compared with 47 times the year before, 83 times in 23\/24 and 47 times in 22\/23.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is unlikely to be indicative of a soft supervisory approach, more reflective of a more forthright approach from the FCA\u2019s supervision team generally to intervene and investigate without needing to commission an official s166 skilled person review,\u201d said Harrison.<\/p>\n In 25\/26, the FCA secured an estimated \u00a382.1 million for consumers and investors through redress schemes, settlements and civil proceedings. This is down on the estimated \u00a3442.3m\u00a0it secured in 24\/25. Cavill and Harrison said comments made in recent years by Therese Chambers<\/a>, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, highlight the regulator\u2019s expectation that firms act voluntarily and proactively to provide redress to consumers that suffer losses owing to non-compliance \u2013 and that the regulator will act to achieve redress if they do not do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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