CLARS Law and Business Seminar: Individual Accountability & Banking Culture
This seminar, held on Wednesday 12 March at Monash Law Chambers, was a critical examination of the cultural impact of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) in the UK and the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR), which had recently expanded into the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR) in Australia. Though various reports in the UK and Australia had determined that these IARs were already starting to have a positive impact on the culture of the financial services sector, there were also some indications to the contrary, which were often minimised.
Drawing on legal and regulatory theory, criminological theory, and behavioural psychology, the seminar explored how these IARs could work better in practice, setting out a normative roadmap for both regulators and financial institutions to consider when implementing and executing these regimes. It explored, for example, the case for implementing a “process sandbox” to provide guidance on the operation and implementation of IARs, where there was a lack of clarity as to how provisions of the IAR would be interpreted by regulators. This would have provided the opportunity to increase mutual understanding of regulatory expectations, thereby enhancing the probability that regulatory objectives would be met.
In addition, the talk explored the case for further professionalising the banking sector, as recommended by the UK Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards in 2013 and the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation, and Financial Services Industry in 2019. It was argued that professionalism could be enhanced by educational requirements that emphasised members’ commitment to serve a positive social purpose, beyond profit-maximisation, and through mechanisms for members to be disciplined by their community for failing to honour their duties.
Dr. Joe McGrath, Associate Professor, Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin
Joe McGrath is an Irish Research Council Scholar, an Ireland-Canada Scholar, a Fulbright Scholar, and an Associate Professor of Law at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin, Ireland. He researches corporate governance, financial regulation, and white-collar crime. He is the author and editor of several books and publishes in the leading-peer reviewed journals in Ireland, Europe, Australia, and the USA.
Commentator: Roslyn Moloney, Deputy General Counsel, Regulatory, at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group
Roslyn Moloney is Deputy General Counsel, Regulatory, at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. She joined ANZ in 2015 from Herbert Smith Freehills where she was a senior associate in litigation. She began her career at Linklaters in London in 2006. She has also worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and served as an associate to Chief Justice Black in the Federal Court of Australia. Roslyn has a BA/LLB (Hons) from Sydney University and an LLM from Columbia University. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Monash Law School, on the effect of legitimacy demands on prudential regulatory approaches to climate-related financial risk in the United Kingdom and Australia.