The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), the UK’s statutory compensation scheme for customers of authorised financial services firms, is currently undergoing a tender process to create its first-ever legal panel.
The FSCS, which is funded by levies authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority, handles the majority of claims in-house, but has in the past turned to James Roome’s restructuring team, now at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and litigators at Herbert Smith Freehills and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
The process is being run by the FSCS’s procurement manager Peter Quinn, with involvement from head of legal James Darbyshire. Legal Business understands that the FSCS, which is aiming to have completed the panel by the new year, has already eliminated a number of firms from the process and is down to a shortlist of competing teams.
One senior lawyer involved in the process commented: ‘It was not that vigorous. It is rather impersonal as it’s being run by some outsourcing governmental group.’
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk