Fides Weekly Update – 16th October 2015

Another week which means another Fides Weekly Update. Read on for our selection of the week’s top legal and business news. Enjoy!

1) Senior Management departures at Barclays continue

News broke in The Lawyer on Friday that Barclays Head of Risk and Regulatory Compliance Nick Kynoch was to leave the bank, taking up the a new position as GC of New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA). It has been a tough year for Barclays, who have in the last ten months lost a string of lawyers from its in-house team.

The beginning of the year saw the resignation of Barclays Capital GC Judith Shepherd, followed by EMEA Investment GC Erica Handling and Deputy GC Michael Shaw – with Corporate Banking GC Joanna Carver making the move to Lloyds. The bank has also lost product heads Khasruz Zaman and Jonathan Peddie, both who have moved to private practice with Simmons & Simmons and Baker & McKenzie respectively.

2) Treasury enforces turnaround on Senior Managers Regime

It was announced yesterday that the Treasury has decided to scrap the “reversal of burden of proof”, a rule that assured individual accountability under the Senior Managers & Certification Regime, to be introduced in banks and financial institutions in March next year.

Instead of assuming the guilt of senior managers when a regulatory breach has occurred, executives will no longer have to have to prove they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent misconduct. The responsibility now remains with the regulator to fully investigate and decide on the severity of individual actions. The best write-up we found was from the FT’s Caroline Binham available here.

3) Blind allocation of associate work continues to be the hottest topic in legal

After Ashurst announced they were to trial a ‘blind allocation’ of work scheme, Hogan Lovells have followed suit by reassessing the way they allocate work to associates. The Lawyer explained that London partners and associates will meet with a management consultant to implement a fairer allocation of work based on capacity, skill set and career development. The firm’s real estate team will be the first to test the scheme, which could see the practice introduced firm-wide. Ashurst and Clifford Chance are other firms who have also trialled similar initiatives.

4) Bad news for Britain’s biggest lenders

Thursday also saw the release of further BoE / PRA consultation papers covering ring-fencing rules, to be implemented by Britain’s largest banks by 2019. As a result, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Co-operative Bank and Santander will be expected to raise an extra £2.2-£3.3bn to ring-fence their retail banking operations and better protect consumers in the event of another crisis reported Reuters.

5) Another blow to Black Cab drivers

The High Court ruled on Friday that hailing a cab in London by the US firm Uber does not break the law. As reported by the BBC, the court had been asked to decide whether the company’s smartphones were considered meters, which are outlawed for private hire vehicles. This represents a victory for the taxi firm and TfL, who argued in October that the app was not a meter and a further blow to the LTDA which represents the 25,000 licenced taxi drivers in London. However, the firm continues to face ‘huge challenges’ over public safety, vehicle emissions and congestion.

Until next week,

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