The contagious nature of culture

Last week, the FCA’s COO Emily Sheppard delivered a speech stressing the contagious nature of culture, likening culture (good or bad) to a winter virus spreading insidiously throughout an organization.

Compliance & Conversation: The culture club

This caught the attention of the panel at Global Relay’s Compliance & Conversation event in London. Leading compliance professionals came together to discuss various aspects of culture and conduct including: non-financial misconduct, culture at the FCA, market abuse and AI governance. Highlights included comments from former regulators and current compliance folk – Mark Taylor and Anna Gooch. Taylor on assessing the issue of an aggressive work environment, “people perform better when they feel safe” and Anna Gooch dismissing the disparaging APPG report on the FCA as like “asking 10,000 Spurs fans ‘What do you think of Arsenal?’.”

Trump halts enforcement of FCPA, directs AG Bondi to revise guidance

In stark contrast, President Donald Trump has just signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a much-used 1977 law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.

“It sounds good, but it hurts the country,” Trump said of the law, known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA, when he signed the order at the White House. The order instructs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause prosecutions under the FCPA until she issues revised enforcement guidance that promotes American competitiveness. We’ll continue to follow this story and see how it’s received by the wider industry and stakeholders.

From AI safety to AI action: Paris summit highlights change in global approach

A two-day AI Action Summit took place in the French capital on February 10 and 11, attended by participants from over 100 countries, including heads of state and government and international organizations. Developing the technology in an inclusive and transparent way, and sharing achievements with less developed countries, was the dominant theme, with little focus on AI safety and regulation.

The event ended with another type of note, not an order but a “Declaration on sustainable and inclusive artificial intelligence for people and planet”, with 60 countries from around the world putting their signatures on the non-binding accord. But two, the US and the UK, did not.

US VP, JD Vance said: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience, partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product: you are the product.” ?

Interestingly, this was signalled in an article we’re publishing on Friday: DeepSeek and personal data transfers to China. Alice Wallbank of Shoosmiths ponders: “That just leaves a wider question: should Europe and the US permit a rival AI superpower to harvest valuable information from its citizens without any controls by tempting them in at an individual level with amazing free stuff? Perhaps we should all remember the old adage about free content on the internet: if there’s no charge, then we are the product.”

A week of contrasting prognoses and opinions on how to support a healthy financial sector – so I’ll leave you with a final question posed by Emily Sheppard, “what kind of culture are you spreading?”?

Until next time,

Jean Hurley,

Commissioning Editor