Jeremy Hunt goes to bat for City firms with FCA ‘name and shame’ criticism
Jeremy Hunt launched a broadside against the financial regulator last night over its plans to name firms under investigation.
The chancellor told the FT that he hoped the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) would “re-look” at its decision to make public the subjects of its ongoing investigations.
The rare intervention will be welcomed by City of London trade bodies including UK Finance, whose chief exec earlier this week said the watchdog’s plans would “undermine our financial services industry and leave us as an outlier internationally.”
An influential group of peers also wrote to the FCA chief Nikhil Rathi two weeks ago urging him to halt the plans, warning they could hurt “blameless” companies.
Hunt’s warning will increase the pressure on the regulator.
But the FCA’s top enforcement officials have issued a strong rebuttal over the weekend, arguing that many other UK regulators already name those they are investigating early on.
“Hefty fines and stern censures make easy headlines. Yet, we are often criticised that these come too late,” they said.
“We have thought about these proposals carefully. We are not proposing to name every firm in every investigation,” the pair said. “Each case would be judged on its merits. In some cases, it will be in the public interest to name a firm, in other cases not. And we will not usually name individuals.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told the FT: “Last year the law changed in the financial services market and [the FCA] have a secondary growth duty. On the basis of that I hope they re-look at their ‘naming and shaming’ decision because it doesn’t feel consistent with that new secondary growth duty that they have.”