Financial services regulation

Penningtons Manches Cooper’s financial services group specialises in all areas of financial services regulation, compliance, disputes and enforcement. With many years of experience in their respective fields, our lawyers focus on delivering advice that is always pragmatic, commercially realistic and technically accurate.

We support banks, insurers and other Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated firms and insurers on business structures and product design, ongoing regulatory compliance, route to market and financial promotion. Particularly known for our expertise in the cutting-edge fintech sector and for assisting peer to peer debt and equity crowdfunding platforms, we can, where appropriate, provide guidance on how to structure businesses to fall outside the regulated financial services regime.

Our team advises on ‘passporting’ and other EU directive rights. We help banks, corporates and financial institutions from outside the EEA to enter the UK and wider European markets; EU based banks and institutions to access the UK market; and UK regulated firms to expand into other European countries. We regularly execute high value cross-border M&A transactions for clients in the regulated financial services sector.

In-depth knowledge of current financial services law, regulatory trends and evolving practices enables us to anticipate how changes may affect our clients’ businesses. We advise regulated firms, and senior executives in their own right, on managing their obligations under the FCA Senior Managers Regime (and where applicable the Senior Insurance Managers Regime and the Approved Persons Regime), including dealing with compliance, recruitment, terms of employment, team moves and disciplinary matters.

Our financial services disputes specialists are able to help firms and individuals pursue and defend regulatory based claims, and to manage investigations and disciplinary actions by regulators.  We have a proven track record in achieving favourable settlements through the courts and by pre-action negotiations. Wider expertise within Penningtons Manches Cooper in areas such as banking and finance; private wealth; enforcement; cyber security;  data protection and international sanctions enables us to offer added value to our clients across the full spectrum of financial services sectors and markets.