FCA publishes the Davis Review and the FCA Response

On 8 April 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Non-Executive Directors appointed Simon Davis of Clifford Chance to conduct an independent inquiry into the handling of the FCA’s announcement of proposed supervisory work on the fair treatment of long standing customers in life insurance.

The FCA has today published Simon Davis’s review[1] (Davis Review) in full and the FCA’s formal response[2].

Responding to the review FCA Chairman, John Griffith-Jones commented:

“Simon Davis has produced a comprehensive and rigorous report in which he makes a number of criticisms of the way the FCA handled the launch of the 2014/15 Business Plan. The Board fully accepts Mr Davis’ criticisms and on behalf of the FCA we apologise for the mistakes that were made and the shortcomings in systems and controls which his report has revealed.

“Mr Davis also makes a number of recommendations about changes to our systems, processes and ways of working. We accept all of his recommendations and I can confirm that we are now implementing them.

“The FCA Non-Executive Directors would like to thank Simon Davis for his thorough investigation.  As a regulator we hold ourselves to the highest standards and in this case we fell short. I am determined the FCA will learn the lessons, and we will do our utmost to ensure that a situation like this will never happen again.”

Notes to editors

1. The Davis Review[1]
2. The FCA response[2]
3. The Terms of Reference[3]
4. On the 1 April 2013 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) became responsible for the conduct supervision of all regulated financial firms and the prudential supervision of those not supervised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
5. The FCA has an overarching strategic objective of ensuring the relevant markets function well. To support this it has three operational objectives: to secure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers; to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system; and to promote effective competition in the interests of consumers.
6. Find out more information about the FCA.