In this fine article in the FT, Alan Miller argues that the Financial Conduct Authority fails all of its statutory objectives — consumer protection, integrity and competition.
Last year it encouraged the profitable oil group Saudi Aramco to list in the UK, proposing a “premium listing” category for sovereign-owned companies, even though this would have led to the abandonment of rules designed to protect minority shareholders.
It takes a geological time to react, taking three years to decide that there was “widespread inappropriate treatment” of up to 12,000 small businesses between 2008 and 2013 in RBS’s Global Restructuring Group.
In 2013, Miller’s True and Fair Campaign reported that closet indexation cost investors about £3bn over five years, following up in 2015 with an estimate that it cost investors £803m in 2014. Three years later, the FCA handed out a pathetic £34m fine and declined to name and shame the guilty.
What would a drugs regulator do in a similar situation if, for example, it found that certain drugs had toxic side-effects? Should it keep secret the names of the drugs and allow them to be sold to new customers?
Clearly not, but financial regulation is somehow special. Our experience with the FCA has been little different, but enough moaning for now.