Following the Rules

Today’s guest is better known to the FBI as ‘Tipper X’, a former hedge fund analyst who became a key cooperating witness in the largest insider trading enforcement sweep in a generation, helping authorities bring cases against more than 80 individuals.

In this episode, he explains why market abuse is rarely a single rogue act. Instead, it’s an incremental process, driven by performance pressure, network drift and the quiet normalisation of ethical grey zones. Drawing on his experience inside a hedge fund, inside a federal investigation and now advising firms and regulators, he argues the industry remains too focused on detecting bad trades rather than preventing bad decisions.

He challenges compliance leaders to look beyond surveillance dashboards, to measure culture as seriously as they measure transactions, and to rethink escalation pathways before misconduct crystallises. And he urges regulators to invest as heavily in prevention and human insight as they do in enforcement technology.

Tom Hardin now works with boards and compliance teams globally, helping them spot the warning signs before misconduct becomes a headline. He is also the author of Wired on Wall Street, which tells the story behind the codename ‘Tipper X’.

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Want to read Tom’s book? Find out more here: https://www.tipperx.com/book

Today’s guest sets out the Financial Conduct Authority’s to-do list for 2026 and beyond.

She details the watchdog’s plans to future-proof UK financial regulation, and outlines what City firms should expect as landmark reforms, including new rules on non-financial misconduct, begin to bed down.

She discusses the FCA’s efforts to build a more open relationship with financial institutions and explains why a more collaborative partnership between regulator and regulated is crucial in the face of unprecedented and rapidly evolving geopolitical, technological and market risks currently shaping financial services.

She also outlines how the watchdog is balancing growth and competitiveness with its core duty to protect consumers and markets and explains why it will continue to push for clearer political accountability to support that task.

Sarah Pritchard’s near three-decade career includes senior roles at banking giant HSBC and the UK’s National Crime Agency. She joined the FCA in 2021 to lead its Supervision, Policy and Competition division and was appointed the regulator’s first Deputy Chief Executive in 2025.

Today’s episode is part of a Following the Rules series delivering practical guidance on navigating legal, regulatory, technological and cultural change.

In this episode, we turn to one of the most challenging and fast-evolving areas of regulatory focus: non-financial misconduct. With the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority set to introduce new rules this year that explicitly bring serious non-financial misconduct within scope of the conduct rules, expectations on firms to identify NFM, address it early, and evidence fair and consistent outcomes are rising fast. And this isn’t just a UK story: regulators globally are paying much closer attention to culture, behaviour and individual conduct.

So what does good look like when regulatory guidance is deliberately principles-based? Why are firms still struggling to translate expectations into defensible decisions? And how can they respond to lower-level misconduct in a way that genuinely supports culture, rather than quietly undermining it?

Joining me to explore these questions are:
- Emily Wright, a compliance and conduct consultant with over 20 years’ experience, including senior roles at Standard Chartered, JP Morgan and ICAP, and,- Emma Parry, the Founder and CEO of NovaFin Consulting and former Global Head of Product Governance and Conduct in HSBC’s Global Banking and Markets division.

Together, we unpack what the FCA’s rule changes mean in practice, where firms are getting stuck, and why remediation, not just punishment, is becoming a critical part of the conduct conversation. We also discuss the launch of the Conduct Compass, a new framework designed to help firms address non-financial misconduct earlier, more consistently, and in a way that drives real behavioural change.

If you’re grappling with how to make conduct frameworks work on the ground, and how to get ahead of regulatory expectations on culture, this episode is for you.

 

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Download the Conduct Compass white paper here: https://go.ewrightconsulting.com/free-conduct-compass-wp-lm

Today’s episode is a special one produced in association with Symphony, a secure and compliant communications and markets technology provider, offering messaging, voice, directory and analytics for financial markets and trading teams. 

It also forms part of a new Following the Rules series providing practical, actionable guidance to help listeners and the financial services firms they work for navigate legal, regulatory, technological, and cultural change. 

In this episode, we turn to a part of market infrastructure that is mission-critical but often overlooked: trader voice. As firms grapple with hybrid working, rising regulatory expectations, and growing scrutiny around operational resilience and third-party risk, the case for modernising legacy voice technology is becoming harder to ignore.  

So why has trader voice remained so static for so long? What has changed to make transformation both possible and necessary? And how should firms be thinking about compliance, surveillance, and governance as they move away from traditional on-premise turret systems? 

Joining me to explore these questions are: 

Ben Chrnelich, CEO and president at Symphony, and  

Antoine Stephen, head of product management for Symphony's Cloud9. 

Together, they share their perspectives on the regulatory pressures shaping investment in trader voice, the practical realities of moving to cloud-based and software-driven solutions, and how data, analytics and AI are set to reshape voice communications on the trading floor in the years ahead.

Today’s guest is leading the UK’s audit regulator through reform without the legislative powers originally promised. Two years into the job, he argues the Financial Reporting Council is acting anyway, using proportionate, common-sense regulation to support growth and investment.

He sets out a pragmatic agenda for keeping UK audit credible and relevant, covering everything from market concentration and SME audits to AI and the future talent pipeline.

He explains why the watchdog has stripped back governance and stewardship codes, warning that over-prescription has driven box-ticking and weakened board accountability. He defends comply-or-explain as a strength of the UK system and urges companies to be braver in using it.

And he renews his call for political action to back his reform agenda in peacetime, before the next corporate failure forces Parliament’s hand.

Richard Moriarty is Chief Executive of the FRC, the UK regulator responsible for audit, corporate reporting and governance.