Law Commission Publishes Updated Draft Insurable Interest Law (Law Commission Publishes Updated Draft Insurable Interest Law)

Latest fortnightly round-up of insurance, legal and business developments with analysis and commentary from the insurance team at Pinsent Masons.

The main topics we're focusing on this week are:

Law Commission publishes updated draft insurable interest law

LEGAL UPDATE: The Law Commission in England has published a draft Insurable Interest Bill which it hopes will modernise insurable interest laws. It updates a previous draft bill from 2016 taking into account responses from the consultation. If implemented, this Bill would repeal previous, outdated legislation and better reflect the needs of consumers to protect themselves and their families.

FCA welcomes investment platform growth but calls for greater competition in interim market study report

The FCA has proposed a series of measures designed to improve competition between investment platforms and to make it easier for investors and advisers to switch platforms. Investment management expert Tobin Ashby of Pinsent Masons said the study "covered a wide range of matters. After a long wait for the FCA's views on the workings of the investment platform market, there is good news in that the FCA has found that the market is mainly working well and that customer satisfaction is high. There are quite a lot of initiatives and potential measures in the detail of this paper, however, that firms should consider carefully ahead of the consultation deadline in September."

Financial regulator mulls 'duty of care' and new damages regime

The FCA is seeking views on whether there is a need for a new customer 'duty of care' or 'fiduciary duty', or whether the existing rules already provide sufficient protections for consumers. It is also seeking views on a new right for consumers to seek private damages against firms which have breached the new duty or the regulatory principles set out in the FCA Handbook, particularly the requirement to 'treat customers fairly'. Contentious financial regulatory expert Jonathan Cavill of Pinsent Masons said that the introduction of a private right for damages for breaches of the principles would "seem to extend the options available to private persons in tandem with the existing rights they have under section 138D FSMA to sue for breach of statutory duty or FOS. However, at this stage, it is unclear how much this would really change things for private persons in cases where they would ordinarily go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which happily relies on breaches of...