European Union: Financial Services Regulation 2024 - New Year Briefing

Whether we see an old face in the White House and/or – yet another – new face in Downing Street, whether national flash points turn into wider international conflagrations, and whether breakdancing (or "breaking") as a new Olympic event takes off, nothing will change the fact that the tectonic plates that make up global financial services will continue to move, sometimes converging, often diverging.

Learning from the past and planning for the future could well be the mantra guiding those building the Smarter Regulatory Framework in the UK, though whether one can plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present is less clear. What is undeniable however is the sheer scope and volume of regulatory change facing the industry – from within the UK, from the EU and internationally. We just have to hope that one of Donald Trump's other gnomic (and grammatically suspect) utterances does not turn out to be true: "Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country".

A note on references to "assimilated law" in this briefing

Many pieces of UK domestic law (including FSMA 2023 on Royal Assent) referred in various places to "retained EU law" (or related terms such as "retained EU case law"). By virtue of section 5 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (REUL Act), after the end of 2023 the term "retained EU law" is now known as "assimilated law"; "retained direct EU legislation" is known as "assimilated direct legislation"; and "retained direct principal EU legislation" is known as "assimilated direct principal legislation". The REUL Act broadly repealed the supremacy of EU law at the end of 2023 in relation to any domestic law, whenever made.

To give effect to the requirements of the REUL Act, The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2023 made a number of consequential amendments to primary legislation, including FSMA 2023: this included replacing references in various pieces of primary law to "retained EU law" with the term "assimilated law".

In keeping with these changes, where we make references in this briefing to "assimilated law", we are referring to UK domestic law previously known as "retained EU law" but without the application of the EU interpretative provisions that had previously applied to such law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (e.g. the supremacy of EU law and general principles of EU law).

Download: Financial Services Regulation 2024 - New Year Briefing

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