Europe

Image: The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is planning to unveil a “regulatory sandbox” for companies to test new products, services, or business models without facing enforcement actions. “To promote competition it is vital that we support firms—both regulated and unregulated, whether large incumbent or small start-ups—that want to bring new ideas that can benefit consumers to market,” says Christopher Woolard, FCA director of strategy and competition. The project will launch for testing by spring 2016. More inside.

At a recent anti-bribery forum in London, Ben Morgan, joint head of  bribery and corruption for the Serious Fraud Office, spoke about companies that have been prosecuted and investigated for bribery and corruption. Morgan pointed out that while no legislation is on the horizon to reward whistleblowers financially, like in the United States, the SFO has cultivated sufficient intelligence  and developed strong relationships with the United States to fight corruption. More inside.

A report by research firm Pinset Masons and YouGov, reveals that 16 percent of customers would likely switch to a “challenger bank” like Metro or TSD within the next two years. These findings come after the British Competition Authority’s recommended the country’s biggest lenders to provide more information around the full costs of accounts to clients instead of breaking up the big four U.K. banks to inject some competition.

Image: The general counsel of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, speaking at the Compliance Week Europe conference in Brussels this week, said the SFO hopes to have several deferred-prosecution agreements in place by the end of this year for companies the agency has been investigating for misconduct. Alun Milford provided no details on who those companies might be, but he did outline how the SFO wants deferred-prosecution agreements (still new under British law) to work. More inside.

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has squashed the idea of breaking up some of the country’s largest banks in an effort to improve competition across the industry. After a thorough review, the CMA found that there’s no direct connection between free accounts and competition. Instead, the competition watchdog provided recommendations for banks, which includes providing more transparent disclosures to help clients make informed decisions.

The U.K’s Finance Ministry is scrapping a key part of the Senior Managers Regime that demanded senior managers prove that they took the necessary steps to prevent employee misconduct. Instead, a new “duty of responsibility” clause will require senior managers to take only the appropriate steps to prevent a regulatory breach. More inside.

The Serious Fraud Office has accelerated its probe into the accounting irregularities at Tesco, hoping to resolve the criminal investigation by year-end. The supermarket chain’s former chief executive Philip Clarke is one of many former Tesco executives being scrutinized by the agency in its investigation; Laurie McIlwee, former finance director, is being interviewed as a witness. Details inside.

The European Union passed a new law that will put an end to sweetened tax deals between member states and multinationals. Under the new legislation, member states will be required to swap information about special corporate tax deals twice per year with national tax authorities over an encrypted e-mail system. Details inside.