Epic court battles weigh on UK watchdog’s efforts to reduce case duration

A few epic court battles and a handful of absconded defendants have hampered the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) efforts to reduce the time it takes to complete enforcement cases. Two active cases, for example, have durations of 112 months and 138 months.

The latter case, against BlueCrest Capital Management, has been grinding along since 2014, having started under the FCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Meanwhile the case against Worthington Group plc started in 2016.

The regulator’s most recent data set shows that 43 enforcement operations in the post-investigation stage have a duration of 60 months (five years) or longer — 75% of the 58 total operations at that stage. This is also a slight increase on last yearʼs 60-month plus post-investigation operations total of 41. That includes cases before the Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC) or contested cases before the courts or the Upper Tribunal.

The data includes two current operations that are over 60 months old, and on hold because a defendant has absconded, the FCA said.

There are other factors that affect case duration, such as court availability, witness cooperation, size and complexity of cases and the time it takes to resolve claims of legal professional privilege, the FCA enforcement report said. The BlueCrest case and the Markos Markou case — also long-running at 99 months and counting — are both heading to the Supreme Court, according to the FCA’s annual report. Both cases have been to the Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal already.

The next trial date in the Worthington Group case is set to resume in January 2027, having started in late 2024. An FCA spokesperson declined to say why this case has lasted so long. One of the defendants has died.

“Increased pace and focus”

A year ago, Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “The deterrent effect of enforcement action is greater the closer in time it is to misconduct occurring.” The longer that cases drag on, the longer it is before the regulator can “send important signals” to the markets.

Investigations closed in 2023/24 took an average of 42 months, or three and a half years, to complete, she added.

The FCA’s latest batch of enforcement metrics emphasised the point that six recent operations had achieved a public outcome in under 16 months. That was a function of its increased pace and focus, it said.  The regulator currently has a total of 130 open enforcement operations in the investigation and post-investigations stages.

Months become years

There are six open enforcement investigations that have been made public, according to data supplied to Compliance Corylated by the FCA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A few of these are already more than two years old, as the chart below shows. The Markou and BlueCrest cases were mentioned in the RDC’s section in the annual report.

Absconded

Sometimes the FCA has included cases in its duration data where a defendant has absconded and the case therefore remains open. For example, in its 2022/23 data it excluded 10 cases that were “on hold” because a defendant had absconded. In the 2023/24 duration data, it included three operations on hold and over 60 months old, because a defendant absconded. That number has dropped to two cases in the most recent data.

Cases where the defendant absconds remain open. There is no set period that cases that are on hold because a defendant has absconded remain in FCA data. It depends on case-specific factors, the FCA said.