Don't be an April fool: prepare for FSMA at legal cut-over

On 1 April the Financial Services Authority's 12-year reign as City regulator will be swept away by the assumption of two new bodies to supervisory power. Emma Radmore analyses key changes to familiar provisions in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 that regulated firms need to know about, and the legislation that will implement them.

Emma Radmore is a managing associate in law firm SNR Denton's financial markets and regulation practice in London. Contact her on emma.radmore@snrdenton.com.

Though we now know the final text of the Financial Services Act 2012 (the FS Act), at time of writing we do not yet know the final form of some key secondary legislation needed to complete the change to the regulatory structure, nor of the new regulators' rules. But we must be prepared for legal cut-over on 1 April 2013, as there may in some respects be few or no transitional provisions to the new regime.