The FSA recently set new rules obligating authorised firms to record the ‘relevant communications’ of their employees conducted on mobile and other handheld devices.

On 11 November 2010, the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) published the results of its consultation paper ‘Taping: Removing the mobile phone exemption’ (view further information). The results set out new rules stating that firms, including banks, brokers, investment houses and financial and commodity derivatives firms, would be obligated to record the ‘relevant communications’ of their employees conducted on mobile and other handheld electronic devices issued for business purposes. The purpose of the heightened level of scrutiny is to provide the FSA with an additional source of evidence to draw on, to aide their investigation and enforcement work. The FSA hopes the increased monitoring of communications will deter individuals from engaging in illegal activity over the phone, namely market abuse and, more specifically, insider dealing.