Dissecting the Financial Services Act

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing. Undoubtedly hindsight shows that financial services regulation in the UK failed spectacularly at its first real test. Of course there were also spectacular failures elsewhere in the world, most notably New York. By contrast, however, jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore and China have performed remarkably well. In the UK, the tripartite authorities set up by the Labour Government comprising the Bank of England, the FSA and HM Treasury, were completely wrong-footed by the crisis and it took a while before decisive action was taken to stem the...