2019

UKSA and ShareSoc have submitted a joint response to the law Commission’s call for evidence on intermediated securities.

This deals primarily with securities held by an intermediary or nominee on behalf of the beneficial shareholder. The full response, submitted on 5th November 2019, can be found here.

This was an excellent event, well organised by the FRC with about 80 attendees from ShareSoc and the UK Shareholders' Association.

Peter Parry and Cliff Weight have written a joint response on behalf of the UK Shareholders’ Association (UKSA) and the UK Individual Shareholders’ Society (ShareSoc). This has been submitted to the CMA. We made these key points:

There are a few important and overarching issues which we believe need to be stated:

The group reports on events of the last year and appeals for new members to carry on the fight here. 

The Law Commission is consulting with stakeholders on intermediated securities (the system of nominee and beneficial shareholders). Following the initial consultation the Commission will implement a scoping study which will provide an accessible account of the law, a description of the corporate governance and other legal issues associated with intermediated securities and an assessment of whether the issues cause difficulties in practice. It will also aim to develop a consensus about issues to be addressed in the future.

The FCA has recently been consulting on the fees charged to investors by investment platform providers when they switch platforms.  Do these distort competition by discouraging users from switching platforms?

The collapse of Carillion in January 2018 prompted a flurry of high level consultations including the BEIS inquiry into the Future of Audit and Sir John Kingman’s Review of the FRC. These have now been followed by a review of the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit by Sir Donald Brydon.

Research by the FRC in 2018 indicated that stakeholders supported further research on intangibles. A discussion paper was issued in February2019.

The joint response by UKSA and ShareSoc to the discussion paper can be accessed here.

The definition of intangibles for the purposes of the discussion is:

The FRC have asked for feedback on the proposed revisions to the UK Stewardship Code (the Code).

This was first published in 2010 to improve long-term returns to beneficiaries by enhancing the quantity and quality of engagement between investors and companies. You can read the response here.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s Sector Views publication provides its annual analysis of the changing financial landscape, the resulting impacts on consumers and market effectiveness. This analysis will feed into the FCA Business Plan 2019/20.

Although the Sector Views are not a consultation, the FCA are interested in the views of stakeholders on its findings. ShareSoc & UKSA made a joint submission. The main points we made were: