Rory Spillman, Duncan Grieve and Adriano Stagni discuss the FCA planning to gain the ability to impose bigger fines on individuals in Global Relay Intelligence & Practice​

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) latest consultation on changes to its penalty and decision-making policies marks a deliberate attempt to recalibrate the economics of enforcement against individuals. In CP26/19, published on 15 June 2026, the FCA proposes targeted amendments to the Decision Procedure and Penalties Manual (DEPP), most notably raising the minimum penalty for the most serious individual market abuse cases from £100,000 to £150,000 and giving itself greater room to increase penalties for wealthier individuals.

That is significant not merely because of the numbers, but because of the direction of travel. In recent years, the FCA’s individual sanctions have been subject to close appellate scrutiny. In recent cases before the Upper Tribunal, the FCA has had its penalties reduced multiple times. In February 2026, the Upper Tribunal handed down a decision concerning Mr Stephen Burdett and Mr James Goodchild (who previously held senior roles at Synergy Wealth Limited and Westbury Private Clients LLP, respectively). The Tribunal upheld the FCA's decisions to ban both individuals for recklessly exposing pension holders to unsuitable high-risk investments, but reduced Mr Burdett's financial penalty from £311,762 to £265,071 after accepting evidence of tax he had paid on the relevant financial benefit, while Mr Goodchild's penalty remained £47,600[1]. The proposed reforms to the rules are, in part, a response to that problem: how to maintain credible deterrence where senior remuneration is deferred, conditional, clawed back or otherwise affected by the enforcement process itself.

The consultation arrives in a broader context where the FCA has publicly stated that it will continue to prioritise enforcement against individuals. In a recent speech delivered at the International Bar Association (IBA) Anti-Corruption Conference on 17 June 2026, Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, emphasised individual accountability as a key enforcement priority.[2] The focus on bringing individual wrongdoers to account mirrors stated enforcement objectives of other prosecutorial agencies in both the UK and the US.

The existing framework: disgorgement, seriousness, deterrence and settlement

The FCA’s current penalty framework (DEPP 6.5B) is built around a five-step methodology. At Step 1, the FCA seeks to remove any direct financial benefit derived from the breach. At Step 2, it determines a figure reflecting seriousness; for individuals in non-market abuse cases, this is based on a percentage of “relevant income”, including salary, bonus, pension contributions, share options and share schemes, for the relevant period. For individuals, the seriousness percentages range from 0% to 40%.

The framework then allows adjustment for aggravating and mitigating factors (Step 3), deterrence (Step 4) and settlement (Step 5). Serious financial hardship may reduce a penalty, but the threshold is stringent as the FCA’s starting point is that hardship arises only where payment would cause the individual’s net annual income to fall below £14,000 and capital below £16,000 over a reasonable period, normally no more than three years (DEPP 6.5D.2).  Early settlement remains materially important. Under DEPP 6.7, a stage 1 settlement can reduce the financial penalty by 30%, although that discount does not apply to disgorgement.

What the FCA is proposing

The proposed changes are narrow, but important. Under CP26/19, the points under consideration are (a) raising the minimum penalty for the most serious individual market abuse cases from £100,000 to £150,000; (b) clarifying the treatment of deferred remuneration; (c) making explicit that penalties for wealthier individuals may be increased by reference to income and assets for deterrent effect; (d) raising income and capital thresholds, (e) greater flexibility as to who makes settlement decisions in certain cases; and (f) extending the penalty framework to cover cryptoasset market abuse to reflect new regulatory powers in this area.

In particular, the proposed treatment of deferred bonuses, pay and shares would align the Handbook more closely with recent Tribunal decisions. The regulatory message is clear: where an individual’s wealth or remuneration structure risks making a penalty insufficiently punitive, the FCA wants greater room to adjust upwards. That is a notable shift from a more mechanistic income-based approach towards a broader assessment of personal deterrence.

Fines issued by authorities in the UK may therefore increase going forward. However,  the overall levels of fines issued by those authorities are typically much lower than those of their US. counterparts.  According to FCA's enforcement data for 2024/2025, the total value of Financial Penalties was £186,412,508[3], split between £179,096,835 against firms and £7,315,673 against individuals.

On the other side of the Atlantic during a similar period, according to the SEC Enforcement Results for the FY2025[4], the "Commission filed 456 enforcement actions, including 303 standalone actions and 69 “follow-on” administrative proceedings seeking to bar or suspend individuals from certain functions in the securities markets based on criminal convictions, civil injunctions, or other orders". This resulted in obtaining orders for monetary relief totalling $17.9 billion[5], which is split between $7.2 billion of penalties and $10.7 billion of disgorgement.

On an individual level, the FCA's highest fines in 2026[6] include Darren Reynolds at £2,037,892, Richard Howson at £237,700, Richard Adam at £232,800, Zafar Khan at £138,900, Bhavesh Hirani at £56,000 and Dipesh Kerai at £52,731. In 2025, the FCA listed James Staley at £1,107,306.92, Jean-Noel Alba at £1,049,500, Diego Urra at £223,400 and Russell Gerrity at £309,843.

The FCA also imposes a range of non-financial disciplinary measures against individuals. According to the FCA's enforcement data, 13 individual prohibitions and three public censures were issued during 2024/2025, and approximately 80 cases were opened against individuals[7]. The SEC stated in their results that their focus for 2025 was charging individuals for violating federal securities laws. In its 2025 results, the SEC noted that it obtained orders barring a total of 119 individuals from acting as officers and directors of public companies[8]. It is important to note that these civil outcomes frequently sit alongside parallel CFTC[9] enforcement and DOJ[10] criminal prosecutions.

Individuals in the shadow of corporate enforcement

The practical difficulty for individuals is often not the penalty formula alone. It is the procedural and evidential environment in which they must defend themselves. Where a firm has already been investigated, publicly criticised or has agreed findings, the individual may face a record that has been shaped without their full participation.

The point is illustrated more sharply by cases in which firm-level findings have preceded, or been published alongside, action against individuals. In the Metro Bank matter, the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published a Final Notice in December 2021 against Metro Bank only imposing a penalty of £5,376,000 for failings associated with Metro Bank's risk-weighted assets. Further to the PRA's fine, the FCA then issued its own Final Notice in December 2022, fining Metro Bank £10 million while also publishing Decision Notices for two former executive directors in November 2022.

A case like this shows that, for individuals, documents produced in the context of a firm-level finding may become the factual architecture for later regulatory action, criminal prosecution or civil claims. That creates an acute advisory problem: the employer’s incentives to settle, preserve market confidence and draw a line under historic misconduct may diverge sharply from the individual’s interest in contesting causation, knowledge, responsibility and fairness.

Settlement pressure and minimum fines

Higher minimum fines would compound that pressure. An individual considering settlement must already weigh reputational damage, prohibition risk, legal costs, employment consequences and the possibility that contested proceedings may lead to a worse outcome. A higher starting point, particularly for serious market abuse, increases the cost of losing and may make the 30% stage 1 discount more attractive.

But uncertainty remains. The FCA acknowledges that fines may be reduced for mitigating factors, serious financial hardship and early settlement. What is not yet clear is how those reductions will interact with any proposed “minimum” level in practice. If a £150,000 minimum is treated as a true floor after mitigation and settlement, the settlement calculus changes materially. If it is a pre-discount anchor, individuals may still achieve lower outcomes. That distinction will matter in almost every serious case.

[1] https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/tribunal-upholds-bans-and-fines-reckless-adviser-and-fund-manager

[2] https://www.fca.org.uk/news/speeches/beyond-headlines-unseen-fight-against-financial-crime

[3] https://www.fca.org.uk/data/fca-operating-service-metrics-2024-25/enforcement-data

[4] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-34

[5] Please note that $14.9 billion relates to a single action (SEC v. Stanford International Bank Ltd., et al, No. 3:09-cv-298-N (N.D. Tex. filed Feb. 16, 2009)).

[6] https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/2026-fines

[7] https://www.fca.org.uk/data/fca-operating-service-metrics-2024-25/enforcement-data

[8] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-34

[9] Commodity Futures Trading Commission

[10] Department of Justice