Free Resources

A Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Briefing

The UK Financial Services Bill was published on 27 January 2012. It is the latest stage in the development of the proposed new UK regulatory architecture. The FSA will cease to exist in its current form. The Bank of England will be responsible for the regulation of systemic infrastructure. A new Financial Policy Committee of the Bank will be responsible for macro-prudential oversight of the financial system as a whole. A new subsidiary of the Bank, the Prudential Regulation Authority, will be responsible for ensuring the safety and soundness of deposit-takers and some other systemically important firms. A new Financial Conduct Authority will be responsible for regulation of firms conduct. [Reproduced with kind permission from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer]

Transparency International UK

At a time of economic crisis, governments are much less ready to accept the waste that comes with corruption. One of the areas of corruption risk is commercial businesses that are owned by the military. This is a surprisingly common phenomenon and is open to a wide range of potential abuses. This report is focused on a few very different countries with extensive military-owned businesses, China, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia, and looked at national efforts of reform. In addition, they have looked at one of the major areas of abuse - exploitation of natural resource assets by the military in oil, mineral, forestry, agriculture, fisheries and land. The paper looks at the operations of some military- owned businesses, and the success or otherwise of some of the reform efforts that have been initiated. It looks particularly into the interaction between these businesses and the natural resource and extractive industries.