The FSA is due to publish the outcome of a long-awaited review ahead of its annual meeting.
Recommendations are expected to focus on specific measures which may bolster internal workings and processes but stop short of reviewing in what type of cases the FSA should properly deploy its enforcement powers, specialists close to the review believe.
"What we're likely to see isn't fundamental reform but a fine tuning of how the FSA makes enforcement decisions and conducts investigations," said Angela Hayes, specialist regulatory partner at Lawrence Graham, a leading corporate law firm. Ms Hayes is co-editor of a book to be published this month on FSA Investigations and Enforcement and worked in the FSA's internal legal team when the FSA's current procedures were being put together.
"A lot of institutions have been fined over the years, even when they've been going to great lengths to put their houses in order and compensate customers," Ms Hayes continued. "The question that needed to be asked, but unfortunately hasn't been, is whether swingeing fines and heavy discipline should be meted out to all or only reserved for cases of deliberate abuse."
The enforcement review, led by the FSA's David Strachan, was commissioned following a dispute with Legal & General which was bitterly pursued at tribunal. More recently, the FSA has levied a significant fine on Citigroup for breaking its regulatory Principles.
