Has the FCA sharpened its claws of late?

Reviewing the regulator's latest aggressive streak

In years past, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and its predecessor the Financial Services Authority could have arguably been considered somewhat light-touch, especially when compared to equivalents in the US.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have for years doled out eye-watering fines sometimes valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars for all manner of market abuse offenses while, by comparison, the FCA could be perceived to be less aggressive in its enforcement approach. More than 1,000 investment firms fail MiFID II transaction reporting requirements However, a recent spate of enforcement activity from the FCA, which has been under pressure since the Global Financial Crisis to come down hard on the worst offenders, s...