The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has directed over 1000 banks, insurers, and brokerages to disclose how many cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, and other non-financial misconduct they have recorded since 2021, and how those cases were resolved.
Through this order, the FCA aims to assess the scale of non-financial misconduct in the financial services industry. It is also seeking more information on the outcomes of firms' actions relating to these incidents, including whether or not they result in non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
"One of the reasons that we're going out with the piece of work . . . will be so that we can see how cases of non-financial misconduct are resolved," Sarah Pritchard, Executive Director for Markets and International at the FCA, told Parliament's Treasury Select Committee last month. "If we see, for example, use of NDAs alongside non-financial misconduct coming through that data . . . we will be able to take that into account in our future supervisory work."
The FCA is also inquiring into how many cases involved senior managers, and where those incidents took place. And, if firms fail to respond, they could be subject to public censure, fines, or searches of their premises.
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