More Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigations into
potential wrongdoing by firms and individuals will not necessarily
lead to more enforcement action, the regulator has said.
Speaking at an industry event in London, FCA
investigations director Jamie Symington said that the
regulator's approach to investigations was "evolving"
in line with its recently-published 'Mission' document.
Part of this process was to clarify the role of investigations as
an information-gathering exercise, rather than an adversarial one,
he said.
Symington said that the FCA was "transitioning to a new
phase of its life", shifting away from crisis response mode
and towards a "longer term strategy for the response to
conduct risk". He said that it was "inevitable" that
this approach would lead to more investigations being opened, and
that "proportionately fewer" of those investigations
would ultimately progress to disciplinary enforcement action
against the firms and individuals
