Outsourcing (In-Person)

Thursday 22nd June 2023 04:00 PM – 05:30 PM, at Eight Club Bank.

Outsourcing:

Almost every regulated firm outsources aspects of its business. The FCA’s rules on outsourcing are a complex patchwork: a mixture of Handbook Rules, Guidance, and Marketwatch issues. The rules place onerous obligations on regulated firms such as brokers. They require firms to review their arrangements on a regular basis and to renegotiate terms with suppliers regularly. The recent ION outage brought the issue into sharp focus, with the FCA making a number of detailed information requests of regulated firms. Are you confident that your outsourcing arrangements could withstand scrutiny? For example:

1. Do you have a list of outsourcing arrangements, categorised by criticality?
2. Are you performing the required due diligence on your suppliers? Are you confident that the supplier is acting in accordance with its legal obligations?
3. When you appoint a new supplier or review your existing contracts, are you negotiating them to include all the provisions required by the regulations, such as rights of access for the regulator, auditors, etc.?
4. What are the pitfalls when negotiating contracts with suppliers? What are your KPIs and service levels? Are they meaningful and in line with best practice?
5. Have you thought about data protection issues, including a privacy impact assessment?
6. Are you clear about who is responsible for what, both in your arrangements with suppliers, and internally when supervising suppliers? Are you properly supervising the supplier and monitoring the risks?
7. Are you notifying the regulator about critical outsourcings?
8. Have you thought about what you would do in the event of an outage at a key supplier like the ION issue? What are the immediate steps you should take in the event of a cyberattack or other outage? Do you have clear procedures in place?

This presentation will cover all of the above and more. It will be presented by Tom Hine and Jan Bingham of Acuity Law. Tom advises regulated firms, including a number of brokers, on all aspects of wholesale regulation, including the FCA Handbook, MiFID, MAR, Benchmarks, EMIR, etc. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the field, including a long period as General Counsel & Head of Enforcement at the London Metal Exchange. Jan is an outsourcing and data protection expert, formerly of Ashurst and Latham & Watkins, as well as 10 years at SunGard / FIS, where she was Assistant General Counsel, negotiating high-value outsourcing agreements.

This is an In-Person round table held in the Rockingham Suite, Lower Ground Floor, at the Eight Club Bank. There will be brief networking drinks after the event. To register to attend this event, complete the form below or email: events@thebrokerclub.org.

There is also a Webinar version of this event for those unable to attend in person, held on Thursday 29th June 2023 04:00 PM – 05:00 PM – to register for the webinar, please click here.