FSA strategy on client assets: Is it working?

Tamara Cizeika, senior regulatory lawyer at Eversheds LLP, sizes up the effectiveness of the FSA's client assets unit.

Recent developments suggest, in the main, that people still have more reason to fear US regulators than those onshore. But there is one part of the FSA that has shown itself to be more prone to action: the Client Assets Unit. But is it working? The Client Assets Unit was born out of the ashes of Lehman Brothers, which revealed striking shortcomings in the area of client assets. Created some years ago, its mandate was essentially to improve compliance with the FSA’s client assets regime, enhance the regulator’s ability to react to a firm’s failure, and improve risk identification, asse...