FSAboss Hector Sants threatens jail sentences for rule-breaking City firms
HECTOR SANTS, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), yesterday threatened financial firms that flout the regulator’s rules with a jail sentence, as he seeks to prove the watchdog’s toughness.
He said that if “firms do not adjust their behaviours…people will go to jail”.
And Sants blamed the City’s culture for the downturn, saying that “some of the failures which have occurred have their roots in issues of culture and behaviour”.
Arguing there was “an absence of collective responsibility” for the global downturn, Sants also said that the FSA would now vet products offered by companies before they were marketed to customers.
The news comes after the City regulator issued a record number of fines in 2008-9, as it stepped up its action against financial firms in the wake of the banking crisis.
In 2008-9, the FSA imposed financial penalties worth £27.3m. So far in this financial year, it has imposed fines of £19.8m, which is greater than at the same point a year ago.
Sants said the FSA had “evolved” into “a radically different organisation,” shifting from reactionary regulation to “intensive supervision”.
Responding to Tory plans to axe the FSA, the body’s chief executive said splitting up the regulator’s responsibilities would be a “return to the dark ages,” and would “invite a fragmentation of approaches and a turf war between the different bodies involved”.