Managing conflicts of interest: U.K. initiatives

The past year has seen a flurry of activity from the major international regulators around issues with a common theme: conflicts of interest. The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the UK regulator, is no exception. On the sell side, the FSA has consulted twice in 2003 directly on conflicts of interest in the context of investment research and the issuance of securities, as well as making new rules in this area. On the buy side, the FSA shocked the fund management industry with its proposals to limit goods and services that can be bought with commissions and to limit the costs to customers’ funds of acquiring bundled and “softed” services, as well as less explicitly attempting to address conflicts in this area. The issues thrown up by these proposals are considered in this article.