The UK has an extremely well developed system of regulatory governance. There are around 100 regulators tasked with creating rules, designing and enforcing regulatory standards, and punishing non-compliance. Substantial financial penalties are regularly imposed for regulatory failure, and criminal sanctions, including imprisonment, are widely available.

Our regulatory, risk and compliance lawyers provide strategic advice in relation to the central risk and compliance challenges organisations and business face in the UK. 

UK regulators organise and network, and all the key sectoral regulators share best practice and common approaches through the UK Regulators Network. Mirroring the UK Regulators Network, we bring together specialist legal expertise across key regulated areas: energy, telecoms, finance, health and safety, environment, competition, anti-corruption and governance. This approach gives us insight into the practices of regulators across the UK, while allowing us to identify relevant trends and anticipate likely regulatory change. 

Our services

We provide strategic advice and insight across the regulated sectors in the UK. We also evaluate the risk and compliance strategies of the clients we work with, alongside proposing improvements and ‘future proofing’ systems. We are expert at ensuring that our advice remains privileged and cannot be recovered by regulators or the courts.

We work with clients to respond to regulatory investigations and inquiries through: assessing the legitimacy of investigative requests; identifying areas of weakness in compliance; designing appropriate mitigation strategies; providing document review platforms and expertise; and acting in formal hearings by regulators.

Our team also shares its expertise through our Knowledge articles and webinar discussions. This includes a series of regulatory risk and compliance webinars hosted following the outbreak of COVID-19, where our team were joined by guest speakers from across the regulatory sphere to explore the impact that the pandemic has had on organisations and regulators around the globe.

Experience

Acted in many high-profile, sensitive and multi-million-pound regulatory investigations and provided extensive advice on public law challenges to regulatory decision-making, involving preparing multiple legal briefings, position papers and developing agile negotiating strategies.
Led a multi-disciplinary team providing support to an international food distribution business on a European Commission 'dawn raid', providing assistance in relation to the use of the Commission's powers to examine the firm's IT systems and to question its personnel over a number of days.
Acted for a retail housing developer in assessing and advising on its compliance strategy and policies across all areas of social and environmental governance. Proposed changes in design and better articulation of the compliance approach.