Financial Conduct Authority chief hopes new senior managers regime would have prevented 2008 financial crisis
The chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority hopes the new senior managers regime would have prevented the 2008 financial crisis.
Andrew Bailey described the previous system as "fuzzy", adding: "The Parliamentary commission on banking standards had this very nice analogy with Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: ‘Everybody’s at the scene of the crime, nobody’s responsible for it.’”
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Asked, in an interview with ITV News at Ten, whether the current regime would have prevented the 2008 financial crisis, he said: “Well, I hope so because I hope that it would have contributed significantly to creating an environment where people say: ‘I won’t do the sorts of things that I did do, because I know much more clearly now what the consequences of those actions would be.’”
Under the new regime, senior managers in British banks, building societies or so-called systemically important investment firms will be held criminally liable for a range of offences. These include taking a decision which causes their institution to fail, being aware of the risk that a decision could lead to institutional failure or demonstrating conduct “far below that could be reasonably be expected of a senior manager in that position”.
Chancellor George Osborne has said the new rules show the government "has learnt from the lessons of the past".