The United Kingdom’s top corporate regulator has introduced another important phase of its plan to adopt a more principles-based approach to compliance: a new framework for recognizing guidance produced by third parties.
The framework is an important part of the Financial Services Authority’s move to ditch many of the detailed requirements in its regulatory rulebook and focus on broad principles instead. It will still publish its own guidance on how to meet those principles, but it also wants to encourage trade associations and professional bodies to publish guidance as well—some of which the FSA will formally “confirm.” The framework explains how the FSA will decide whether to confirm guidance, and what status such guidance will have.
