The UK Regulatory Outlook: helping you navigate the UK's business regulatory landscape

Understanding the regulatory and compliance landscape can be a challenging task wherever you do business.  But for those expanding, or who have recently expanded, into the UK, this can be particularly challenging.  In addition to sectoral regulatory regimes in industries such as energy or telecoms, there is a broad range of business regulation that applies to most businesses, whichever sector you operate in.  And as we explain below, the consequences of getting it wrong can be severe – not just for businesses but for directors and other senior personnel.

Our Regulatory Outlook is designed to provide a broad overview of the regulatory and compliance landscape, across 12 areas of business regulation, highlighting the key current issues and dates for your diary.

A focus on personal liability

In each edition of our Regulatory Outlook, we also provide a more in-depth analysis of an issue that pervades all areas of business regulation. In this edition of the Regulatory Outlook, we focus on personal liability, examining where personal liability can be imposed on directors, officers or others, under a range of regulatory regimes.

As we explain, regulators increasingly see personal liability as the most effective way of driving positive change in corporate compliance.  For many offences, it does not matter that the individual did not intend to do anything wrong – a common test is whether the relevant harm was caused with the “consent, connivance or neglect” of the director or officer.  Instances of long custodial sentences are rare, but the number of prosecutions is increasing.

Understanding where liability can be imposed, and how risks can be mitigated, can be vital in protecting individuals in your business from prosecution.

Brexit and regulation

One of the things that businesses value most when it comes to regulation is certainty.  The lack of certainty surrounding the post-Brexit regulatory landscape is therefore a major challenge.

Slowly, though, the fog of uncertainty around business regulation in the UK post-Brexit is starting to recede.  We know, for example, that the UK government intends to transpose all EU-derived law as at the date that the UK is due to leave the EU, in March 2019, into national law. Existing regulatory regimes should, therefore, be preserved at first, although possibly with a different regulator or institution. This will include new EU laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, which will be in effect by the date that Brexit takes effect.

But for reforms that are still progressing through the legislative process, the situation is less clear. The European Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy, to take one example, has been a flagship EU legislative initiative, affecting Consumer Protection, Competition and many other regulatory regimes. However, some of the strands of the DSM are some way off becoming EU law and may, therefore, not form part of UK law after Brexit.

Whether the UK decides to follow the regulatory reforms in areas such as the DSM, and whether, post-Brexit, areas of regulation that are harmonised on day one remain so, could have a significant impact for businesses that have operations in the UK or the EU.  If regulatory and certification regimes in the UK and EU diverge, the cost of having to comply with both could have an impact on decisions as to where to operate and trade.

While in many areas it is still too early to tell what the position will be in the UK post-Brexit, businesses that are not already doing so need to start preparing and contingency planning (if they have not been doing so already). Indeed, some regulators are actively requiring firms to provide details of the steps they have taken to prepare for Brexit.

In order to be able to undertake this exercise, now more than ever, businesses need to ensure they have an understanding of the areas of regulation that affect them. This Regulatory Outlook is intended to help with this, focusing on the areas of regulation that are most likely to be relevant to businesses in the UK, in whatever sector you operate.

How can we help?

Our microsite has details of all of the areas of business regulation covered, or you can download the full Regulatory Outlook.

This Regulatory Outlook draws on the expertise of over 40 regulatory lawyers in Osborne Clarke’s UK Regulatory Group. Whether you are interested in personal liability, a specific development covered in this Regulatory Outlook, or would welcome a wider discussion about regulatory compliance or how you can prepare for Brexit, please do get in touch with me, the relevant expert for the area you are interested in, or your usual Osborne Clarke contact.