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Shock Horror! Companies obey law!

The Financial Services Authority has not launched a single enforcement action against any regulated business for failing to comply with its remuneration code since the rules were introduced three years ago.

Err, if everyone is obeying the law then there don\’t need to be any enforcement actions, do there?

The code was designed to cut the size and number of joining payments made to new staff by banks. However, a senior City lawyer said many had found loopholes. “Banks are doing all sorts of things to get around the code. The fact that no firm has been brought to book tells you everything you need to know about how worried they are about being caught,” said the lawyer.

Could just be that what they\’re doing is legal.

5 thoughts on “Shock Horror! Companies obey law!”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    Could just be that what they’re doing is legal.

    You mean just like the fact that rape suspects are convicted at about the same rate anyone charged with any other criminal offense is, is not proof that the Justice system does not work properly?

    I expect what they all want deep in their hearts is a Soviet-style quota for convictions. Whereas I would think the sensible solution is abolishing this law. It does not appear to do anything other than increase the amount of pointless paperwork everyone has to deal with.

  2. Funny how you don’t quote the following paragraph from that Telegraph article:
    “Legal sources said there was disbelief in the City at the lack of action by the regulator to enforce its own code and that there was widespread evidence of breaches of the rules.”
    In other words, you’ve presented a report about the FSA’s failure to do its job properly as if it was a report arguing that the job doesn’t need to be done at all. You’re usually more honest than that.

  3. “Whereas I would think the sensible solution is abolishing this law. It does not appear to do anything other than increase the amount of pointless paperwork everyone has to deal with.”

    The fact that we know – despite this – Cameron won’t touch it tells us a lot, doesn’t it?

  4. So Much for Subtlety

    passer-by – “Funny how you don’t quote the following paragraph from that Telegraph article:
    “Legal sources said there was disbelief in the City at the lack of action by the regulator to enforce its own code and that there was widespread evidence of breaches of the rules.”
    In other words, you’ve presented a report about the FSA’s failure to do its job properly as if it was a report arguing that the job doesn’t need to be done at all. You’re usually more honest than that.”

    Sorry but no. Legal sources. What are legal sources? Not City sources. Not people who would have a clue. But people who stand to gain millions, tens of millions, *per* *case* if someone was charged. So a biased source.

    There is no evidence there is a problem here and this is despite the fact that the FSA is a p!ss poor regulator who can’t find their own arses with both hands.

  5. Hmm. I personally wouldn’t regard the absence of FSA investigation as evidence of financial institutions’ rectitude. I’d regard it as evidence that FSA is a lame-duck organisation that doesn’t give a stuff about investigating anything because it is about to be abolished.

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