A post-Brexit rulebook wishlist

The UK's exit from the European Union prompted speculation about a possible re-shaping of the financial services framework - yet progress so far is more of a 'damp squib' than 'regulatory bonfire'. Adam Samuel vents vexation with the current rulebook.

Adam SamuelBA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted atadamsamuel@aol.com.For links to where you can buy the second edition of 'Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation', seewww.adamsamuel.com/writing.

Perhaps one of the greatest disappointments with Brexit has been the UK's inability to use its 'independence' from the EU to remove some of the less desirable bits of regulation that European membership has glued to its rulebooks and legislation. Strangely, MiFID in 2007 actually shortened the COBS rulebook through its 'maximum application' requirements. Basically, states could not go further than the directive and its delegated legislation. Since then, though, new European Union rules and the Financial Services Authority/Financial Conduct Authority's natural facility for using more words than its continental colleagues, have reversed these gains. Even when new directives have forced the United Kingdom to simplify its regulation, the UK's implementation approach has often created more of a muddle than anyone ever intended.