Publication
“AI and sustainability - cure or curse?”
While AI can help resolve data issues in sustainable investing, it can create problems such as information breaches and inherent bias in data.
United Kingdom | Publication | May 2020
On April 28, 2020, the Financial conduct Authority (FCA) wrote a “Dear CEOs” letter to the CEOs of regulated entities, asking banks to treat corporate customers fairly when negotiating new or existing debt facilities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter notes that the FCA has heard reports that some banks are pressurising corporate clients to provide the bank with a role on an equity mandate that the client would not otherwise appoint them to, sometimes with few additional services being provided by the bank which still share the fee pool. The FCA requests that this practice cease immediately, noting that as well as distorting competition, undermining market confidence and calling firms’ integrity into question, the practice could breach FCA rules and Principles and be inconsistent with a bank’s obligations regarding the sharing of inside information under the Market Abuse Directive.
Banks active in the equity and lending markets are asked to review their current systems and controls to ensure they are appropriate for ensuring the proper treatment of clients, the identification and mitigation of conflicts of interest and the handling of inside information. The FCA will contact the relevant senior manager of any bank that has had a lending relationship and equity role with any issuer that has recently raised significant equity capital to understand how the bank ensured the client was treated fairly and that inside information was handled appropriately.
On April 27, 2020, the Investment Association published guidance for remuneration committees of UK-listed companies, setting out shareholder expectations on how remuneration committees should be reflecting the impact of COVID-19 on executive pay. The guidance notes that the impact of COVID-19 will be different for each company and while there are minimum expectations for all companies, individual circumstances and the impact on stakeholders need to be taken into account in each case.
Areas addressed in the guidance are as follows:
On April 29, 2020 the Chartered Governance Institute of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) published guidance for companies that conclude that it may no longer be appropriate to recommend or declare a dividend that is due to be put to shareholders for approval at the AGM, or that the dividend should still be paid but the amount reduced.
The Guidance Note looks at the following issues:
On April 27, 2020, Companies House updated its guidance for customers, employees and suppliers to announce that its emergency filing service can be used to upload and submit completed registrar’s powers forms to enable the following to be done:
In light of this, Companies House has published guidance for companies that need to file a registrar’s powers document online that would usually be sent to Companies House in a paper format. This guidance has been created for the interim Upload a Document to Companies House service to enable paperless filing in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
(Companies House, Upload a document to Companies House, 22.04.2020)
Publication
While AI can help resolve data issues in sustainable investing, it can create problems such as information breaches and inherent bias in data.
Publication
In this edition of Regulation Around the World we review recent steps that financial services regulatory authorities have taken as regards investment research.
Publication
The proliferation of internet-enabled devices has allowed children to access the internet at an increasingly younger age, often sharing their personal data without fully appreciating the risks and consequences of doing so. Accordingly, organisations that collect children’s personal data online have a shared responsibility to ensure that such personal data is collected with the appropriate consent obtained and is adequately protected, and to allow children to safely participate in the online space.
Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest legal news, information and events . . .
© Norton Rose Fulbright LLP 2023