Implications of Brexit for Financial Services Lawyers

Richard Mawrey QC, of Henderson Chambers, offers some initial thoughts on the implications of Brexit – The Morning After!

• The EU made relatively little impact on UK consumer credit law and virtually none on consumer hire law.
• While the 2008 Directive made our law EU-based, 90%+ of it was existing UK law.
• The only real innovations were to row back on some of our exemptions (eg high net worth and buy-to-let finance) and to introduce the SECCI and ECCI which most consider an improvement on pre-Directive disclosure.
• The vast bulk of regulation is now in the hands or our entirely home-grown FCA and its Handbook which Brexit will not affect in the slightest.
• There is likely to be a sharp drop in the vogue for foreign-currency denominated loans even if only because of a weak pound.
• There may well be moves by some lenders to move their headquarters to other EU countries (eg Ireland or, if it happens, an independent Scotland) but they will still be subject to UK regulation if they trade here.
• In short, the likely results of Brexit will be economic and not legal: there will be no diminution of regulation of the consumer credit or consumer hire industries.