On 5 July 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority
("FCA") published its Enforcement Annual Performance
Account (the "Account") for the 2016/2017 year as part of
its Annual Report and Accounts.1
The Account is the FCA's assessment as to whether it is
operating fairly and effectively in investigating suspected
misconduct and in bringing criminal, civil and administrative
proceedings in appropriate cases. In this article, we look at some
of the highlights arising from the Account.
The Account reveals that the FCA is running a record number of
investigations. The number of open investigations has increased
dramatically with 414 still open as of April 2017, as compared to
237 open at the same time in 2016. The increase in investigations
may be explained by the FCA's new strategy of opening more
investigations in light of the HBOS Report released in 2015 which
criticised the FCA for being too cautious in it approach to
commencing investigations.
