Crimes and misdemeanours: penalties and punishment in the UK financial services sector.

Please note that this briefing paper is no longer being updated.

For information on:

• individual accountability in financial services, see our briefing on the Senior Managers and Certification Regime; and
• economic crime, see our briefing Economic crime: a multi-billion pound problem.

Many of the penalties levied on financial service firms are for breaches of rules rather than crimes. The rules are drawn up by the financial regulators – in the retail market this is now mainly the Financial Conduct Authority and appear in the Handbook.

Statute offences also exist and these can be enforced by several agencies.

This note gives a brief guide to the main agencies involved in the enforcement of financial law and their powers.