A new duty of care for banks and other financial institutions? The Financial Services Consumer Panel’s proposal

By Dr Holly Powley, Lecturer in Law, and Prof Keith Stanton, Professor of Law (University of Bristol Law School).

© Chris Brown

The past few years have witnessed a debate in the field of banking and broader financial services law: should the law relating to the duty of care owed by financial services firms to their customers be reformed? The Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP) argues that the answer to this question is yes; the current law does not provide consumers with adequate levels of protection, and thus the law needs to be. The current regulatory regime requires firms to treat their customers fairly, however the FSCP believes that banks and other financial services firms should be held to a higher standard and for this reason have advanced reform proposals to address this issue.

The purpose of this blog post is to analyse the content of the reform proposals and assess the viability of any reform, in light of the existing legal regime. It will be argued that, as indicated by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the proposal advanced by the FSCP is unlikely to improve the law in this area. (more…)

The EU public procurement remedies directive needs some revision, and the Commission should not shy away from it

By Dr Albert Sanchez-Graells, Senior Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

my-performance-reviewEU public procurement law relies on the specific enforcement mechanisms of the Remedies Directive, which sets out EU requirements of administrative oversight and judicial protection for public contracts. Recent developments in the case law of the CJEU and the substantive reform resulting from the 2014 Public Procurement Package may have created gaps in the Remedies Directive, which led the European Commission to publicly consult on its revision in 2015. One year after, the outcome of the consultation has not been published, but such revision now seems to have been shelved. In a chapter* I am contributing to an edited collection, I take issue with the shelving of the revision process and critically assesses whether the Remedies Directive is still fit for purpose. (more…)