Financial Horizons Podcast

Andrew Lyon: Welcome to our latest bitesize TLT podcast for the financial services sector, where we deep dive into the hottest topics of the moment. My name's Andrew Lyon, I'm the Head of Financial Services at TLT. I'm joined today by James Chadwick and Chantal Peters, who are Partners in our regulatory investigations and contentious regulatory practise. Today, we'll be discussing whistleblowing, the developing landscape and the challenges that our listeners are facing. And I'll start by turning to Chantal just to talk a little bit about why whistleblowing is so important.

Chantal Peters: So firstly, it's a cornerstone of good corporate culture, so it plays a key role in promoting accountability, transparency and ethical conduct. And from a firm's perspective, it can be really good in early detection of issues. So providing an opportunity to rectify shortcomings and to prevent. Cry. This and really allows UM firms to be proactive in managing market notification obligations and public relations around issues that are identified. James Chadwick: Yeah, 100% and in a regulatory context, as you'll no doubt know, the FCA has introduced its own whistleblowing line. It has been used to inform supervisory and enforcement action and it's having a really positive impact on improving regulatory standards and corporate behaviour. So the. Core the core. Combination of all of the above is is really. That whistleblowing serves to protect. It builds trust of the public, consumers, employees, stakeholders and markets, and that's a matter that should really not be underestimated in a world where individuals are increasingly making choices based on whether a corporate is a good corporate citizen.

Andrew: Thank you. Moving on then to the way in which we work these days and how that has changed so much in, in recent times, how can firms respond to that dynamic and ensure that they are correctly identifying reports?

James Chadwick: Thanks, Andy. Yeah. So I mean, it's absolutely essential that there are these dynamic and multi channel opportunities for people to be able to report concerns. Those channels need to be accessible, secure and publicised across the firm. The secure element obviously is critical to effectiveness. So there's absolutely no point in having a channel if people don't trust. That confidentiality is being protected at all times, so critically from a firm perspective, those policies and procedures need to cater for this new hybrid working environment. Be very, very clear that actually matters concerning the workplace can be raised no matter where individuals are located, and also firms may consider extending those channels to family members and employees so as to mirror the FCA's direction of travel. And similarly, training is. Absolutely critical not only to managers but also to the senior managers sitting within firms. Firstly, on what is whistleblowing, how to spot and respond, but critically considering board training, because all of this is directed from the top.

Chantal: And I think when we when we look at the role that psychological safety plays in a whistleblowing context, another consideration could be looking at 1-1 frameworks and weaving in questions around well-being and concerns to really encourage individuals to speak up in a day-to-day basis around concerns that they have. And AI is obviously a topic we could talk about for for hours on its own, but we're we're seeing some interesting approaches by clients looking at how you can scan various channels for particular words or patterns of behaviour that may give you the heads up of potential whistleblowing. And then I think that the last point I'd make would also be it's not just about the channel that it's used, it's it's also about what the concern is and and quite often we see concerns that and have a mix of issues that are being raised. And so triage is really important to make sure that you're picking up what truly is whistleblowing. Segmenting that from other issues that may be grievance or general managerial conversation. And making sure that those are going to the right places for investigation.

Andrew: Thanks, Chantal. And just just staying with you for a moment. We constantly hear about instances of poor treatment of whistleblowers that seems to be ongoing, a wave of campaigns like me too, and Black Lives Matter and the post office inquiry really shine light on that issue. What you see is the key failings in this regard and what can firms be doing to effectively protect whistleblowers?

Chantal: Yeah. And I think you're right, Andy is it is a real issue we saw in protect the the the key whistleblowing charity in the UK, their campaign called out 70% of whistleblowers who reached out to it claim that they framed for some sort of retaliation. 20% being dismissed though very, very, very much. 5 issue I think the key failings we see are investigators not appearing to be impartial because the investigations are handled internally and so conflicts and and and wanting to paint them in the best like contain investigations and the treatment of of whistleblower. We see very much a perception issue, so we'll focus on potential motive as opposed to the significance of the the issue being raised is it very much turns into a contentious situation, you know, whistleblower versus firm as opposed to everyone working together for better outcomes. Although I think just more generally, clearly these issues come with an operational impact. The investigation cost some investigations and so that may lead to, you know individuals not wanting to investigate senior managers being nervous that issues could come and and and lie at their door. And and not wanting to have a dig around, I think they're the key ones that the sort of key failings that we see and not having structured protections around whistleblowers when they have raised an issue.

James: Yeah, that's that's got to be right that that those are the core failings. But then critically, how do you mitigate those those risks and create that psychologically safe environment in which people feel safe and secure and protected and raising issues. Now I think there's multiple mitigants that can be put in place. Pastoral care is absolutely critical. There is a symbiotic relationship between investigation. Themes and hour and people functions. It's not not only pastoral care for whistleblowers, but it's also pastoral care for those who are involved, either those individuals potentially who. Have been accused of of behaviour or alternatively, operational teams who are being infected and and and I think that that is absolutely critical and making sure that's being tracked and monitored carefully and we see a lot of firms actually offering whistleblowers independent legal representation and that's really sensible. It gives independence. Gives support to individuals and it's just one to to consider in the context of the severity of of of whistleblowing events and in terms of information. That's also critical. Knowledge is power. Whistleblowers should be kept informed about the progress of investigations. Now that's not about. Taking steps to over share information because that could possibly result in the loss of privilege or confidentiality, but it's more about making sure that the whistleblower is feeling heard. A further mitigate is around the makeup of the investigation team. Teams need to be trained very carefully on bias and conflicts. There needs to be independence in that process and any frameworks that are put in place should critically highlight situations considered to be a conflict. It should have very close controls embedded just to escalate and manage the same. I suppose three more mitigants from my perspective at a very high Level, 1's very clear. 0 tolerance policy on on reprisal or victimisation. It's absolutely critical that that is and core to any whistleblowing policy or process. Similarly, post disclosure monitoring has to be kept very, very close. And finally, and probably the main point. The raise is that critical tone from the top. We've talked about training to senior manager. Years they those senior managers and those senior individuals within organisations need to be leading from the front in terms of the the, the way in which whistleblowing and its integrity is protected.

Andrew: Thank you, James. And just looking at the the the US for a moment, there's growing research that the reward system there is having a positive impact on the the pace and the effectiveness of investigations. Is there a chance of a similar system being implemented here in the UK?

Chantal: I think just a few comments first on the the the US regime. So it's very much limited to violations of security laws or economic crime. And there has to be a successful enforcement off the back of the tip, only a warning around 250 reports from whistleblowers actually leads to. A reward, so very limited. And actually, research suggests that this really is benefiting private lawyers over the whistleblowers. Private lawyers are used to sit through the various reports that that are received, and there's a a perception that they are prioritising reports from whistleblowers who they actually act for. Because they do do receive some of the. Well, so some negative aspects that that we're seeing being aired in that regard. But I think the the key point I'd I'd pull out there and is actually the research is calling out the impact on the pace and effectiveness of investigations as opposed to the increase in the quality of disclosures that are being received.

James: Yeah, absolutely. No question and you know and going to your question rather is there a chance of similar systems being implemented in the UK? Well, we're certainly not there yet. Elements exist certainly in exceptional circumstances and a good example is. And the competition and Markets Authority are offering rewards up to 250,000 for information about cartel activity. But that is at very much at the discretion of the CMA. Reward systems are. Being explored in the UK and I have to say that that's positive. Taking those learnings that Chantal has quite correctly raised in the US. And there are certainly some core advocates lobbying for change since taking office in September 2023. But whatever example the director of the SFO, Nick F Grave, has been advocating for whistleblower rewards. And in November 2024, he announced proposals to reward whistleblowers at levels match and those available in the US. The SCA now seems to be following suit, which I think is a really interesting development, announcing that it has been in discussions with government and other agencies around the potential to introduce whistleblowing rewards, which I think is a positive change that I suppose closing point on that is that the independent review of disclosure from fraud offences can commissioned by the. The Home Office in 2025 includes within its scope a review of incentives for whistleblowers, so a final report is due by the end of 2025. So watch this space and hopefully and enable there for some legislative change and some positive action.

Andrew: And just going back to that piece around a safe environment for whistleblowers is the UK regulatory regime is that, does that go far enough at the moment or is there any other reform coming down the line?

James: Does it go far enough now? Research alone at the moment, Andy sort of suggests that there is a lot more to do here. Findings and inquiries, such as sexism in the city suggests that the protections are not where they need to be. You know, evidence within that inquiry showed that 70% of whistleblowers within financial services were were victimised, dismissed, or they they felt that resignation was the only option open to them. But I think importantly, this isn't just a regulatory issue. The regulator really is pushing for self regulation within firms and it's critical therefore, that it's the firms that are driving that cultural shift. But that in itself creates a conflict because it leads to inconsistent treatment depending on which firm is looking at it. Because they're creating obviously their own. Cultural environment, which could differ between one firm and another.

Chantal: And I think just going to your your point around potential reform and there are various pieces in, in, in, in the backgrounds, the previous government established a review into to whistleblower legislation and unfortunately there were no conclusions reached regarding the effectiveness of the current. Legal framework, but there were some suggestions for change, such as a central body for whistleblowing, financial support for whistleblowers. Planning non-disclosure agreements and and as we've just discussed, the US style reward system, so that could potentially be taken forward. Everyone probably is aware we've got the employment rights bill being implemented in in April and that it introduces changes around. Sexual harassment being included as a a category of of whistleblowing, preventing non disclosure agreements in cases of of harassment and. Station and broadens unfair dismissal grounds and for certain employers, a requirement on them to investigate whistleblowing and speak up reports. And we also know that the FCA is due to land final policy in relation to non financial misconduct later this year. And that will include. Subjecting a whistleblower to detriment, as an example of a breach of conduct Rule 1 to the the Integrity conduct rule, and so there are various changes I think though as James has mentioned, self regulation remains a key element and and so there will be an element that that has to be retained by firms.

Andrew: Thank you. And I just finally really want James to pick up on just any sort of takeaways you want to highlight for our FS clients and and how how TLT can help?

James: Thanks, Andy. Yeah, I mean, just really drawing together some of the keynotes from some of the topics we've spoken about. Actually, training is absolutely critical to senior management and boards. It's all around tone from the top. It's that cultural shift. It's it's leading by example, some very, very close trend analysis taking on the obligation of leading. On the front in terms of that cultural shift and and be held accountable. I mean the second point I would raise is around the independence of the investigative team. It's absolutely essential from an integrity perspective and optically that that review is seen to be being independent and that's actually where third parties can come in and and and we have certainly seen as a as an external law firm that that's where we can add that level of value and level of independence, particularly for more for some of those. Well. High, high, high risk or sensitive issues. And then finally I think from from me, I'm sure Chantal will have some views on this, but a point that I raised earlier around effective triage and actually getting good minds into the room with HR as a great example who can support on the pastoral care piece just to make sure that all angles are considered at the outset because actually that diversity of thought is what is critical to a really rich whistleblowing and speak up culture.

Chantal: I think it's just there's two things that are that James. So reversing the perceived stigma mentioned earlier, move the focus away from motive and really a focus on the positive of whistleblowing. So risk management, healthy culture, employee trust, everyone wanting to do the right thing for the firm, for the market, for the employee. These and then also regular audits. If you're whistleblowing process and procedures to ensure that they fit for purpose, they match the regulatory landscape and that the protections for for for whistleblowers are robust and and and an element of benchmarking as well. When you do a regular audit to ensure that you're you're at a similar level to your peers.

Andrew: Thank you very much, James and Chantal for really useful, helpful insight. Thank you very much for listening to this podcast. Please remember to subscribe on your usual podcast provider and to listen to more episodes, please visit tlt.com.

Jonathan Hoey: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of our TLT podcast series for financial services, where we delve into the hottest topics for what we think is coming next.

Today I, Jonathan Hoey, I'm joined by Tom Ward, also a Partner at TLT and Tom's an expert in structured finance and loan portfolio transactions.

He co-leads our lend transactions practise and without sharing a spare and Tom's blushes, he's advised on many high profile deals including a measure of Newcastle and Manchester building societies, forward pro funding arrangement between building society and generation home and also the disposal of banking client PLCS £100 million mortgage portfolio.

Tom because he's not going to tell you this himself, so I'll tell you. He's recognised in the Legal 500 for his his client first approach and he brings deep experience across a range of areas within this wide-ranging subject.

I think that Tom goes without saying is, is one of the the leading figures in of this area in the UK.

And hopefully what we're going to do is dive a little bit more into his world where he can give us a better perspective on the evolving landscape.

So, Tom, welcome

Tom Ward: Thanks, Jonathan. Very well, thank you and thanks very much for the kind introduction and for having me on the podcast. We're seeing lots of forward flow funding in the in the market at the moment. So really looking forward to discussing it with you.

Jonathan: Good. OK, well, let's get straight into it. And I'm sure most people who have tuned in will know what this friendly model looks like. But for my benefit more than anybody else's, I suspect, can you just tell me a little bit about what this is?

Tom: Yeah, of course. So I've been in a nutshell, forward flow funding is where one party who's typically called a funder will make funding available to another party, usually called an originator for the purposes of originating loans.

So this type of funding model is is often used for originating mortgages. So the fundable provide the funds and the originator will originate the mortgages, but it's not exclusive to that, and it's used for other types of loans as well.

And just to sort of quickly explain the mechanics of it. So the funder, as I say, will make the funds available, what's called pre fund an account. So those monies can be used as and when every mortgage is sort of originated and completed. And then on the completion of a mortgage, without getting sort of too technical about it, the beneficial title in the mortgage will, or economic interest, if you like, in the mortgage will transfer across to the funder, whilst the legal title in the servicing will remain with the mortgage originator.

So from a customer's perspective, their, their lender, as far as they're aware will be the mortgage originator. They won't be aware of the fact that in the background a funder has actually provided the funding that has led to the creation of their mortgage.  So you know, this is quite a common sort of funding arrangement.

It's really picked up speed and over the over the last few years. And you know, one of the key benefits to this is that funders, they will get the benefits of the repayments of the principal and interest from the customer in a mortgage type scenario and the mortgage originator will charge fees. So that's how the sort of economic dynamic works.

Jonathan: Yeah. I was going to ask about that because we, you know, sort of, yeah, you know what typically what, what slices of this are taken by the funder and the originator, because presumably the originator is, do they, are they typically entities that are more well known in the market or they, they, they're sort of, they're the ones that are the outward face of, of you're contracting with.

Tom: Oh, not really.

Jonathan: It could be a myriad number of of different sorts of entities.

Tom: Yeah, that's right. So yeah, you're right, it can be a a myriad of different entities. It's very, it's a very popular type of funding model with start-ups or or sort of smaller specialist lenders because this type of funding is it's very cost efficient. It doesn't actually touch the balance sheet of the originator though, though it's often used by those who are looking to grow scale quickly.

And for that reason, it's also, you know, beneficial to funders because they can use it as a way to back that type of innovative product market disruptor who are bringing something new to the market without actually having to invest in that themselves and develop that themselves from scratch. Instead, they can provide the funding that would allow the the specialist lender, the startup to bring their products to the market, continue to offer their products to the market. And in terms of sort of how the economics are split the, the foreplay funding from a originator's point of view, they charge fees. So it's like a fees model.

They will charge the funder fees for every mortgage they originate and for servicing those mortgages, whereas the funder will expect to receive the mortgage repayments in the interest. But there are there are some variations on that that you do see all depending on commercial negotiation really.

Jonathan: And who typically are these forward flow funders? Are they, are they your kind of main banks or are they, are they very specialist funders who get involved in this sort of thing?

Tom: It's a mixture. It's a mixture, Jonathan. So yeah, very much banks, but also clearing but also investment banks, building societies, challenge banks. We've seen all of those different types of financial institutions, the role of a Thunder in these types of, in these types of arrangements. So it can be a really varied thing.

And in terms of the originators, as I say, you know, the, the, these are sort of specialist lenders, but not exclusive to that. They, they can also be entities like motor finance providers, for example. So, you know, we've seen this type of funding used in in that part of the market too, right.

Jonathan: OK, so we've dealt with some of the advantages there. Are there any particular downsides in relation to this model that potential participants should be aware of?

Tom: There's certainly things I should bear in mind. Yeah. So this type of funding doesn't tend to produce the type of returns that an originator might, might expect if it was to use, say, a securitisation model instead. But of course securitisation comes with a much bigger price tag, for example in terms of legal fees.

So there is a sort of a higher barrier to entry if you like in terms of the securitizsation. But that is something to bear in mind. You know, forward flow funding is a fees based model for an originator. So they don't directly share in the in the equity or the upside or that as I say, you know, they can do in certain circumstances.

For example, if certain performance targets are met, then they might be able to negotiate a share of the interest, for example, in the in the heads of terms. And that's a fairly common feature of these, but it's unlikely they would see the same returns as in a securitisation. That's that certainly one of the things that they should bear in mind when when going into this. And it's often one of the reasons why forward flow funding is used almost as a means to gain scale as a precursor to a securitization later down the track.

Jonathan: OK, All right. Well, given that, I mean, I think that, you know, in terms of the market that this sort of funding arrangement, what what, what's, what's the market like at the moment and where, where do you think we are in the cycle?

So can you just give us sort of a commentary around that?

Tom: Yeah, of course it's we're seeing a lot of activity in the market at the moment and that's been the case for a little while now.

Of course it does have does have peaks and troughs, but there's always in, in my experience, a pretty steady demand for Ford Blow funding and, and has been for some time because it's a well recognised route to funding and it and, and forms a key part of the funding models for lots of different institutions.

In terms of the sort of size and scale of these types of deals. You know, we've seen anything from 25,000,000 which appreciate that it sounds like a big number, but that's at very much the lower end of the scale up to sort of 2 billion plus. So this type of funding can be used for for different sizes, different asset classes, there can be ramp UPS, ramp down.

So it's a very sort of flexible type of model, I would say.

Jonathan: And in terms of, do you see the market getting even busier or do you think it's going to be just stable? What kind of factors are driving people's usage of this, this model?

Tom: Yeah, I see it continuing to pick up, continuing to get to be more heavily used with within the market as awareness in increases. So, for example, recently we've seen building societies start to start to make use of this as a, as a funding model. You know, we've seen this in the past with the likes of Nottingham Building Society providing forward flow funding to generation home.

But you know, as you mentioned in the, in the intro there, Jonathan, we acted for Penrith Building Society on this. And we're seeing other other building societies starting to express an interest as well with sort of more and more requests for training, know how Intel so they can upscale themselves and gain more knowledge about what these types of arrangements are and what they do. And it's interesting that, you know, we did this for Penrith, which is a smaller building society. So it's not something that is the preserve only of the biggest players in the market. It's something that's open to different funders, but also different, different sizes of originators as well.

Jonathan: Right, ok. In terms of just putting all these strands together, are there any other sort of points that entities should consider before entering into a forward flow funding arrangement? Anything to do with, I suppose the commercial terms or regulatory aspects, just a sort of signpost really for things to look out for?

Tom: Yeah, sure, thanks a lot. So in terms of regulatory aspects, that's a really good point. So then then depending on what products are involved on each particular deal, there may well be a requirement to notify the FCA of the intention to enter into one of these funding arrangements. And the FCA may well have questions once the notification has been received, particularly if there are any unusual elements to to the forward flow funding that take it beyond what will be considered, I suppose a classic forward flow funding structure. And so I'd say, you know, bear that in mind and and make sure that the notification is submitted in plenty of time so that if the FDA does raise questions, request a meeting that can all be dealt with without derailing the overall timeframe for the deal.

Another regulatory point to bear in mind is the Co manufacturer principle, which I'm sure you'll appreciate. That was something that was introduced as part of consumer duty and Co manufacturers of of our product have responsibilities and obligations under consumer duty.

And the question which comes up on these types of arrangements is whether the the funder is actually a co-manufacturer in relation to the products that are being originated. And the likelihood of that being the case would be if, for example, the funder had some input into the look and feel of the product, the mortgage, for example, that's being originated or the pricing that's being attached to this mortgage in the market. And generally speaking, it's something that funders don't want to be co-manufacturers because that comes with added responsibilities, added added obligations. So often funders are seeking advice around the perimeter of the Co manufacturer and whether they are likely to fall within it or outside of it. So that's something to bear in mind. And and lastly, in terms of commercial terms, yeah, again another really good point. And I would say that the the term sheets for forward flow funding agreements tend to be long form. So they tend to be pretty detailed and there are usually lots of commercial and legal points to consider at the heads of terms term sheet stage. So I would say that it's definitely worth seeking advice at that term sheet stage and to ensure that all the key points have been considered when putting these term sheets together and also to get a, a better understanding from your advisors about what the usual market positions are. So yeah, that would be my sort of key messages in terms of other points to bear in mind.

Jonathan: Oh, right. Well, well, well, people know where to come when they were first on this then Tom, I think that the I think that what you've talked about there is, is something that is relatively tried and tested as, as as a model. It's a but, but, but in terms of why we're talking about it today, I suppose it goes back to your point that you're potentially seeing an increase in the usage of such models.

In terms of your one key takeaway to leave us on, what would that be?

Tom: Yeah. So I would say that it's a, it's a funding model that can be used to support innovation as I've mentioned. And you know, it has clear advantages for both funders and originators. So it's something that I would suggest that people bear in mind and look at as as part of their funding model, particularly there at the moment where there are lots of investors in the market with capital to deploy and lots of originators looking to originate. So there's a real opportunity there to suit both the both the funder and the originator, right.

Jonathan: Okay, all right, fab, that's great. Thank you, Tom, Thank you for your time and thank you to everyone for listening to this podcast. Please remember, if you if you like what you heard, please subscribe via your usual podcast provider. We'll be keeping a regular flow of sorry, no pun intended, but we'll keep a regular sort of flow of these podcasts coming through so please do watch out for them. And to listen to all episodes, do visit our website at tlt.com where you'll you'll see the library of them there. But for now, thanks again, Tom. Thank you all for listening and we'll we'll see you again soon.

Jonathan Hoey: Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of our Bitesize TLT podcasts for financial services, where we try and pick some of the hottest topics shaping the future of finance.

I'm really excited that today I'm joined by Roger Potgieter, who's a partner at TLT specialising in disputes and investigations within the financial services sector, but with a particular focus on asset finance. Well, welcome Roger. How are you today?

Roger: Hi Jonathan. Yeah, very good. Thanks. I'm very much looking forward to taking part in this podcast, which I've heard a lot about.

Jonathan: Good. Well, you can tell us a little bit more about yourself after I've finished my spiel, I guess, in terms of what you do. I mean, Roger advises banks, leasing companies, finance lenders on a range of things, but including fraud prevention, recovery, misrepresentation claims, regulatory complaints and so much more. I think Roger, you spent some time in-house before you joined private practice, is that right?

Roger: Yeah, that's right.  I spent three years working in what at the time was a start-up motor finance company. I landed a job there where I worked at the back end of the business, so dealing very much with things that had gone wrong.  And I was able to continue my studies while I was there.  But what it meant was by the time I qualified as a Solicitor, I had that three years at the Coface bank in terms of experience, which really gave me a good understanding of what the clients I now act for are dealing with on a day to day basis.

Jonathan: And also, I think it's fair to say, Roger, that you're a frequent attendee at various industry  body conferences,  so FLA, asset finance,  Connect and Leasing Foundation.  For those of you who haven't met Roger, if you go to any of those sort of sessions, you can't fail to spot him because he's very, very tall. And so, he's the person in the room that you'll see before you see anybody else, I suspect.  So that’s how you spot him.

Roger: Yeah, that's a pretty  accurate description, Jonathan.  Yeah, I find it really useful to be in that environment. The asset finance industry in the UK is a bit of a community. I like to think of it as a community and I've got to know a lot of people over the years by being ever present in those forums. And it certainly gives you a good understanding  again of what clients are experiencing  on a regular basis.

Jonathan: Well, thanks, Roger.  Well, today we're going to be discussing the thorny topic of asset fraud  and specifically the lessons learned from the Arena TV fraud. So, let's get into that now, shall we? Could you just talk a little bit about what this was all about?  I think we're discussing it a few years on from when it happened, but let's just set the scene, if you could do that.

Roger: Yeah, well, mean, fraud within the asset finance industry has unfortunately always been around in one form or another. And in my line of work, we're often helping clients with the investigation of suspected fraud or the recovery of assets where a fraud has been uncovered. But what made Arena TV such a landmark case was the sheer scale of the fraud that was perpetrated by the Directors of that company.  It was quite simply huge.  

If you look at Companies House, you can find the schedule of creditors in the Administrators Report, which reads like a who's who of the UK leasing industry. So more than 50 UK lenders were impacted with losses exceeding £280 million by this fraud. The single  largest hit to one individual asset finance lender was around £34 million. Another lender took a hit of £29 million. And there were several others who took seven or eight figure losses as well.

So, in that respect, each affected lender might have their own view as to what they should or shouldn't have done differently. But in many ways, they might also have taken some comfort from the fact that they weren't alone.  Now, Arena wasn't some sort of startup fly-by-night company with no track record. In fact, it had been around since 1988. And what Arena did is they were an outside broadcast company. So they had contracts with many of the major TV channels in the UK. They provided coverage of high-profile sports fixtures. Many of us will have watched some of these ourselves, Six Nations Rugby, Test Cricket, International Football, the Euros, I think, as well as other events of public interest such as Glastonbury.  They were an ideal kind of glamour client for many of the asset finance lenders.  They never missed a payment to anybody.  So on the face of it, they were a dream customer.  But behind that, a very  sophisticated fraud was being carried out over an extended period of time. And what effectively Arena did is they obtained funding from across the industry on thousands of assets which did not in fact exist. Fresh air invoicing, meaning there was nothing for the lenders to recover when it all fell over, leading to significant losses.

So that's kind of in a nutshell what the context was, a glamour client perpetrating a long running comprehensive and fairly sophisticated fraud which nobody spotted until it was too late. Now, why are we still talking about it?

Jonathan: Can I ask you a question? In terms of the significant losses that you've referred to, was that relatively unusual at that time in the asset finance world to have such a concentration of losses of the kind that you were speaking about?

Roger: Certainly in my experience. mean, I had, as I said, fraud keeps popping it's head up in one form or another and quite often we're dealing with a fraud for an individual client, but from time to time you might get three or four clients that had experienced a fraud of the same description or the same nature or perpetrated by the same individuals at the same time. But to see something certainly in my career of this sort of extent, for me it was a first and the losses, the extent of the losses across the industry measured that.  Yeah, by far the biggest one that I've been involved in in my time, Jonathan.

Jonathan: Right, okay. just out of interest, what did the forces do with the money? Why were they effectively siphoning this money off? What did they spend it on?

Roger: That's the big secret. Nobody ever knows. mean, just thinking back when it broke, effectively, Arena TV was based in Redhill, had premises there, they had various jets and outside broadcast vans and all sorts of things, but they had premises in Redhill where some of the stuff was kept. And one day, apparently the employees got an email from a director saying, we've closed the business, and they had disappeared, literally disappeared.  I think that there is a fairly extensive police investigation going on at an international level.  I think they were at some point traced to somewhere in Europe, perhaps France. There was an arrest at some point, but none of the money was ever recovered, so it was probably funding. Well, firstly, it was kind of a pyramid scheme effectively. So, they were borrowing money to pay existing liabilities, I think, but also funding probably quite a lavish lifestyle, where that money is now? It's either all gone or it's very well hidden, but certainly it hasn't been uncovered.

Jonathan: Right. And so, given the magnitude of what happened, have you seen any sort of changes in our lender behaviours, culture or processes arising from what was experienced?

Roger: There was certainly on the back of that, there was a significant amount of discussion amongst the industry, both in the immediate aftermath, but also in the years that have followed. Hence, we're talking about it sort of four years later, but it keeps coming up.  I imagine there was also great amount of soul searching by lenders, particularly those who were hit hardest by the fraud. So how, how was an entire industry?

This is my personal view. I understand, I've never met him, but I understand the director with primary responsibility for this was an incredibly convincing smart operator who made people feel very comfortable in his presence. And on top of that, of course, as I've said, it was a very successful high-profile business and they always paid on time. They had a great track record.

But as an industry, if you look more broadly at how the industry reacted, there has been an encouraging degree of collaboration, which I think is really good to see.  And a particular example of that is that one of the industry's big insurers on the back of Arena developed a product which I guess could be described as a register of exposures. And roughly the way it works is that lenders who subscribe to the service will enter on the register appropriately anonymised details of any asset finance facility which they have provided to a particular borrower or customer.

Any other lender who is later approached to provide an asset finance facility to that same customer can then check the register to see the extent of other asset finance lending which that customer already has, and can decide on that basis whether it's within their risk appetite to provide further funding. Now, had that system been in place 10 years ago, it almost certainly would have gone some way towards preventing or at least mitigating the extent of the Arena TV fraud because one of the many things that Arena did when applying to extend facilities with lenders was to lie about their existing commitments to other lenders.

And it was only after the event when it all came crashing down that people questioned how a business of arena size managed to obtain such a substantial asset finance lending portfolio that was offered to it. So that register would certainly help against that.  And why I think this product is significant, and I'm not particularly here to sell it, I just think it's a really encouraging development is I think it's significant because it demonstrates collaboration by the industry to combat fraud. Now for a system like that to work, it needs significant uptake from across the industry to be effective. It's no good if just a few people are putting the information on the register and nobody else is.  And it took a few years to get there, but I understand that they are now or very close to the point where a significantly large proportion of the asset finance community in the UK has signed up to this register. And that ensures that it can and will have a meaningful impact on fraud prevention. So, it's the collaboration piece that I think has come out of ARENA as a new way of working, if you like, across the industry.

Jonathan: Okay. And so maybe a line in the sand to some extent, but I suppose, you know, it's something which from an emerging fraud risk perspective, it's never going to go away.  It's always going to be there. It's kind of inherent in any lending situation, but are there any particular risks that asset finance lenders should be worried about today? Any sort of new types of fraud or maybe old types of resurfacing in more numbers than before? Is there anything that you have seen on the current trend analysis that would be of interest?

Roger: Well, as you say, is it a line in the sand? I'd love to say that it is, Jonathan, but as you've said, it probably isn't.  I mean, some good things have come from it. I've mentioned collaboration a minute ago.  But as you say, the reality is that fraud and fraudsters are dynamic and innovative, and fraud is not going to magically disappear overnight, no matter what you do. Whatever barriers you put in place; somebody will find a way around it. That's just the nature of things.  Again, just talking about arena as a large-scale fraud, which is one of your questions earlier. I don't like to say it, but arena was not the first and only large-scale fraud.  There were some before and it's not likely to be the last. But in terms of it being a line in the sand, I would like to say that the industry has learned lessons from it and hopefully this will put us in good stead to perhaps spot the next big one before it happens, or at least early enough to prevent it from turning into something which is on a similar scale to arena. Now in terms of what that might look like, emerging trends, which was kind of the second part of your question, all the old fraud types are still there in one form or another. There's a kind of a, there are sort of typical asset finance frauds, if you like. What the emerging risk is, I think, of course, over time, people have put in place measures to protect against those. But I think the biggest thing that any lender should be looking at now, is fraud driven by technological enhancements.

And I guess that's the obvious thing to say, but it is the reality, so while AI and technology brings a lot of wonderful things to many of us, it is also unfortunately an enabler of fraud.  So, fraud enabled or enhanced by AI is definitely something to be concerned about. Whether it's phishing, business email, compromise, account takeovers, impersonation, AI is unfortunately a massive enabler of fraud. And lenders need to be on top of that and factoring that into whatever fraud prevention measures they are putting in place.

Jonathan: Yeah, I was going to say, I was just going to ask that about, you know, the best chance of protection against the next major fraud event. You talked about the register earlier on, which obviously sounds like a positive development. But if there was one sort of, you know, key sort of takeaway on that particular topic of what can lenders do to protect themselves to the best point they can going forward. Is there one particular sort of area or theme that you can really point to?

Roger: The theme I would advocate, and I've done this for a long time, is collaboration and talking to each other across the industry. So, all lenders will experience smaller, more isolated frauds on a regular basis. That's just the nature of the world we live in. So, whether it's fresh air invoicing, inflated asset valuations, conversion fraud, fake documents, whatever it is.  But what I think tends to happen is that lenders often keep these experiences to themselves, maybe out of a sense of either embarrassment if they've been a victim or a feeling that certain things should be kept within the business rather than being shared more widely. What I would love to see is people talking about this stuff, sharing experiences and wherever possible sharing information to help protect others. Now there are forums which can facilitate this such as the FLA Financial Crime Working Group, but there are others too. So, while an individual fraud might be a matter, a small matter for an individual business, what I'd like to see is the asset finance industry seeing itself collectively as an industry combating fraud together, sharing information to help protect others because we all have an interest in making asset finance unattractive to fraudsters. And I think it's only really through collaboration and shared experience that that can be properly achieved. So, collaboration would be, to me, the big thing that can help moving forward.

Jonathan: Brilliant. Thank you, Roger.  That's a really good takeaway to end our discussion.  So I hope everyone found those insights really valuable and interesting. And I, for one, have learned a few new things along the way as well. And as you rightly say, Roger, We’ll see these sorts of things again as fraudsters find new and sophisticated ways of breaking the system.  But hopefully through working together we can minimise these things.  So, thank you very much for your time and thank you everyone for listening.  I hope you also found it useful.  Please remember to subscribe on your usual podcast provider and if you want to listen to more episodes, please visit our website at TLT.com. So, that's it for now. Again, thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon in our next podcast.

Andrew Lyon: Welcome to our latest Bite Size TLT podcast for the financial services sector, where we deep dive into the hottest topics of the moment. My name's Andrew Lyon, I'm the Head of Financial Services at TLT.

I'm joined today by Humna Nadim, a Managing Associate, is a specialist in contentious IP and reputation management with experience in trademarks, design rights, copyright, passing off and breaches of confidential information.

Humna advises clients across the financial services sector, including fintech startups, established financial institutions and high net worth individuals, helping them protect brand value, manage reputational risk and navigate complex IP disputes in a highly regulated environment.

In this episode, we'll be discussing the evolving landscape of IP law, particularly in light of the recent Getty and Stability AI case, something I'm sure with which you'll be all familiar, and what it means for financial services firms that are increasingly reliant on digital content, data and third party technology. So Humna, welcome. Let's start with this case of Getty and Stability AI. I believe the the trial has just completed,
we're awaiting judgement, but could you just give us a bit of a high level overview of the issues in that case to kick off?

Humna Nadim: Yeah. Hi, Andy. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, so as you said, this is a trial that's incredibly recent. It concluded maybe a month ago now and Getty Images and Stability AI here are two very big players in the market. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with who those people are,
so Getty Images are an image repository where people go to to licence images or provide their images so they can be licenced by third parties. And essentially there were allegations made by Getty Images that Stability AI unlawfully used millions of Getty's copyrights images to train it's generative AI model. That's called stability diffusion.

So Getty's claims as a consequence of that usage are that Stability AI has infringed the copyright in those images, has infringed those database rights, and there is some potential trademark infringement as well,
and that arises due to the fact that Getty Images has that well known watermark that is on the back of most of those images.

So Stability AI quite rightly denied those allegations, arguing that the training occurred outside of the UK, that there weren't substantial parts of the Getty work that were reproduced. And I think on the face of it, it seems like quite a creative industries or technology sector base case. But it actually raises a number of fundamental questions about how AI models are trained and whether or not copyright usage without the permission or or consent of the owner is something that's legally permissible. And I think more generally and broadly, it confronts the legal and ethical boundaries of how generative AI models are trained at the moment, which is something that we within the legal field are still struggling to deal with. So ultimately an outcome from that decision will influence future regulation and it will probably influence a lot of how AI companies train their models and, and how they're made available to the public. So it is quite important and a fundamental case.

Andrew: Yeah, as you say, something that clients will be waiting for the judgment on and with baited breath that's going to take some time. I believe these things don't happen overnight. But in the meantime, whilst we're waiting for that judgement, what should clients be thinking about and how are we supporting clients as we await what's coming?

Humna: Well, specifically for those clients in the FS sector, there is number of conversations that I've had myself and there is the old anecdote that the FS sector is not a brand-led sector. And I think in the past, particularly 10 or 15 years, that's probably quite untrue. Our FS clients are becoming increasingly reliant on their online platforms. They're moving away from bricks and mortar outlets. They are using their branding online as the distinctive point and their selling point. And in an incredibly competitive market, the thing that FS clients will be trading on will be the data that they have, all the knowledge and information that is key for them and and their customers. So we are seeing greater movement and shift towards the usage and exploitation of IP by these FS clients, and therefore any decision that influences how IP will be used in the future by AI software providers will impact these clients.

Now there will be existing issues that might affect clients and will become increasingly prevalent depending on what the judgement's like. So for example, if there is a judgement in favour of stability, there might be more false websites. It might be easier to counteract security measures used by FS clients because of the fact that it will be easier to train those AI software models. New problems or new considerations that clients might need to think about in the FS sector. And again, particularly on issues where there is dealing of information or confidential information is will there be a greater demand for licences if for example, AI models are required to then pay a premium to ask for consent to train their models? Will there be an increased cost from financial publishers that a lot of our clients rely on to determine market trends and to determine things like costing? Will there be regulatory issues? That's quite an important one because there is already a difference between the way the EU and the States are treating AI and AI training. And will a decision put us closely more aligned with those industries or will we be moving away? So it's quite an important decision for the FS space and what the kind of advice that we're giving rather than being "oh we don't know", and "we have to see what the judgement is going to be". The clients can do at the moment is almost take it back to basics. If copyright is the grey area at the moment where there is this "Are we allowed to train, will software developers in the AI space be able to train and their models?" Look at the more certain rights. Look at things that you can register such as trademarks or registered design rights. Look at your portfolio, look at where there are gaps and and try and do this regularly. So at least in the event that there is a decision which would permit companies like Stability AI to train their models, you've got something to rely on that isn't just copyright.

Andrew: Thanks, Humna. And just putting the case to one side for the moment, clearly there's ongoing development and usage of AI tools. What other questions from an IP perspective might inhouse legal teams in the FS space be asking themselves in that context?

Humna: Yeah, this is something where we're actually fighting a number of clients. And at the moment, and one of the the kind of obvious sections that a lot of businesses aren't necessarily engaging with that.
That aspect is when you're looking to take on an AI provider to to your business services portfolio, that there is a need to look at the contractual elements of it in in some detail. Because especially for people in the FS sector where you have confidential information being the key component of something which is of of most value to the business. You can appreciate the fact that if your IP clauses and IP provisions aren't protecting that confidential information properly, there is a risk that when you're inputting it into a system, you are losing that ability to protect that information and you're helping a third party train their model and potentially there is a risk of it being outputted in someone else's output if they're using this in the model.
So we're helping clients at the moment go through their contracts, sift through the clauses, give them an indication of where that leaves them in terms of their IP usage, gives them an indication of what risks there are potentially to them and almost steering them in respect of how it is that they could best protect themselves with those contracts. And it's done through simple things like like risk assessments.

Andrew: Thanks, Humna, and just a final question to finish. What can we expect now in terms of the the judgment, in terms of process? And these things tend to take time to get handed down, but also I'm sure there are other things going on in that IP space, in your IP world, that that might be interlink with this. So anything else you just want to mention before we finish?

Humna: Yeah, sure. I think unfortunately with this case, it's one of those where we we are going to have to watch this space and see what the judgment brings, and I think a lot of us in the industry do think that whatever the outcome of the judgment is, it's likely that it will be appealed just because of how important it is and the number of interests involved in this one decision. And I would suggest that clients, albeit it can be quite boring keeping an eye on these things and reading through news, but it will have an impact on you and your business. So if it's at a bare minimum, have a look. But we will undoubtedly be putting content out there on LinkedIn and on other socials. So keep an eye on that space as well and other areas that this is potentially going to have ramifications on.

My personal view is that there was a consultation that closed in February earlier this year, which was to look at whether or not the copyright legislation at its bare bones needed some degree of reform And essentially it was looking at whether or not AI models should be permitted to be trained and be allowed to data mine on copyright material owned by third parties. So there hasn't been a decision in respects of whether or not this legislation should be changed. There hasn't been any indication given by the government. And I think personally, the government will may be waiting for this decision or are waiting for this decision too, to see whether or not that that piece of fundamental area of law should be updated. So it'll be interesting to see whether or not the government also take a lead from this decision or whether or not they they decide to kind of move with essentially market pressure and put ourselves as in the UK markets in line with the EU and the US. So, yeah, keep eye on this space.

Andrew: Thanks, Humna. We'll finish there. I'm sure everybody's waiting with bated breath for this judgement when it lands, probably next year.

Thank you everybody for listening to this podcast. Please remember to subscribe on your usual podcast provider and to listen to more episodes, please visit tlt.com.

Jonathan Hoey: Hello and welcome to the next edition of these Bitesize podcasts from TLT.  I'm Jonathan Hoey. I lead our Banking and Lender Services group here.  And today I'm joined by two of my fellow partners who are going to talk about all things connected to the Leeds Reforms, and also specifically the review of the Financial Ombudsman Service. These people are Sam McCollum and Alanna Tregear. Sam, do want to go first and introduce yourself?

Sam McCollum: Yeah. Hello, Jonathan. Good to join you today. My name is Sam McCollum. I'm a partner in our Financial Services Disputes and Investigations Team at TLT. I support clients defending a range of FS disputes from high value cases to advising on strategy and overseeing portfolios of low value claims. I advise clients in particular as well on dealing with complaints managing emerging views and risks emanating from the the FOS and the wider implications. And in recent years, in particular, I've spent a significant amount of my time supporting our lender clients on the commission disclosure related issues. Sam.

Jonathan: Alanna, can you do the same?

Alanna Tregear: Of course. Thanks Jonathan. And as Sam says, great to join you this morning on this podcast. I'm Alanna Tregear. I'm another partner in the Financial Services Disputes and Investigations Team. I work for a variety of financial institutions on both contentious and non-contentious regulatory matters, especially as a particular in consumer and motor finance and advised on a range of disputes, mostly with claims against lenders and have been involved in things relating to a judicial review of the FAS, challenges to CMCs on complaints and looking at applications for group litigation orders and other high value litigation.

Jonathan: All right, thank you. So, we’re going to talk today a little bit about the Chancellor's aims to  loosen up financial services in the UK to make it more competitive  and to encourage growth.  These things encapsulate in the so-called Leeds reforms. There's lots in there, but one particular angle that we wanted to focus on today was the review of the Financial Ombudsman Service and the consultation papers that have come out. Alanna, could you kick us off with providing an overview of what the key changes that are proposed and where you think this is going? That would be enormously helpful. Educate me if nobody else.

Alanna: Yes, and they're quite a comprehensive and detailed list of proposed changes. So I'll try and summarise some of the key points from each. So the HMT has published a consultation paper, so a best sector strategy review of the Financial Ombudsman Service and that sets out its findings and proposed reforms following the Economic Secretary's review of the FOS. It proposes a package of reforms to the legislative framework in which the FOS operates and some of these include, first of all, looking at the fair and reasonable test. Now the government considers it's important that that is maintained so that the FOS is not simply duplicating the work of the courts. However, that should be adapted so that firms can have confidence that where conduct complained of is in scope of the FCA rules, compliance with those rules in accordance with the FCA's attention will mean the FOS is required to find the firm has acted fair and reasonably.

A second key proposal is referrals to the FCA on interpretation. And this is basically in order to facilitate enhanced collaboration between the FOS and the FCA. The government is proposing to introduce a dedicated mechanism that will support the FOS in applying FCA rules in accordance with the FCA's regulatory intent. So this will operate where the FOS is making determinations that rely on the interpretation of the FCA rules and where the FOS considers there is ambiguity, the FOS will be required to request a review from the uh FCA on the interpretation of its rules. Quite critically, the parties to complain will also be able to request the FOS refers and issue a rule interpretation to the FCA.

Thirdly worth mentioning is the referrals on wider implication issues. This is separate to the point I've just covered. The government has noted that in a small minority of complaints, issues may arise that have wider implications. They consider that dealing with wider implication issues is a regulatory responsibility and the FCA should be responsible for considering this and deciding what the regulatory response should be. So parties again to a complaint will be able to ask the FOS to refer an issue to the FCA and if the FCA concludes the complaint may be part of a mass redress event, the FCA can direct the FOS to pause the relevant complaints.

Looking at the role of the courts, the government has said it will ensure the FOS still has powers to dismiss cases that would be dealt with more appropriately by the courts. However, the government has said it does not consider an appeals mechanism to the court should be available to the parties in individual cases once the FOS has made a final determination. Spith looking at consistency of decisions and again to help ensure consistency between decisions of the FOS, the government is proposing to adapt the statutory basis for the FOS so that the chief ombudsman has overall authority for all FOS determinations. They'll then be able to delegate to the teams, but they'll be expected to ensure the FOS produces determinations which are consistent. A sixth point worth mentioning is the transparency of approach. And I think the government here is interested in views on what transparency arrangements would be most helpful in providing ways for consumers and firms to understand what to expect from the FOS in determining a case.

I think the government is considering requiring the FOS to publish, for example, quarterly thematic guidance documents, and taking on how types of cases are investigated. Seven is quite an interesting one around institutional arrangements. And the government want to test what institutional changes may be necessary to address concerns raised. And interestingly, one option the government is seeking views on is whether there would be benefits to making the FOS a subsidiary of the FCA.

Another really interesting one for lenders dealing with all sorts of matters and particularly recent judicial review challenges  are time limits for bringing complaints to the FOS. I think the government wants to ensure that the time limits which operate for complaints are consistent with the core purpose of the FOS as a simple and cost effective alternative to the courts. So they're actually proposing to implement an absolute time limit for referral to the FOS of no later than 10 years since the event occurred.

But course, they would be subject to some exceptions there.  then finally, just the last point on the HMT consultation that I just mentioned, it is looking at mass redress events.  And so the government, as I said, wants to ensure the FCA is responsible for investigating and declaring mass redress events quickly. The FCA has said its proposed approach to align with these. And the government has also proposed lowering the bar for a Section 404 redress scheme. They are looking at enabling the FOSS to determine complaints in accordance with terms of firm led redress scheme and also giving the FCA more flexible powers to pause complaints.

So obviously on the same day, in addition to the HMT consultation, we also had the FCA of the FOS publish their joint consultation modernising the redress scheme and that very much complements the HMT paper  and sets out just some additional proposals for change.  I'll just mention two at this stage.

One of them is looking at lead complaints and the FOS is proposing to introduce a structured lead complaints process on novel and significant issues. So under the proposed model, firms would be able to apply to the FOS to consider a representative sample of lead complaints. And the second one worth mentioning from this paper is the new registration stage. So here the FOS proposes to introduce a new registration stage in its complaint handling process and this would effectively serve as a checkpoint to assess whether a complaint is appropriate to proceed to an investigation stage. And so by introducing a registration stage, the FOSS aims to ensure that only well-evidenced and appropriately evidence complaints progress to the chargeable investigation stage. And the aim is that this would improve the quality and speed of investigations and support a more proportionate and transparent charging model.

I should probably also briefly mention the same day as the consultation papers, the FOS published its final policy statement on interest on compensation awards. And this sets out the FOS's revised position on interest applied to compensation awards. And in summary, the FOS has confirmed that the new rate will be a time-weighted average on the Bank of England's base average rate plus 1%. And so this will generally apply to the period from when the complainant was unreasonably deprived of this money the payment deadline set by the FOS for paying compensation to the complainant. This is at the moment intended to come in from the 1st of January 2026 but all complaints submitted to the FOS from that date onwards.

Jonathan: So Alanna, isn't that a lot lower than it currently is?

Alanna: Yes, because it's currently 8%. So, mean, it depends on what the base rate will be over the years but yes, it should be obviously a lot lower than the standard 8% which for a long time now has thought to be outdated and a considerable windfall  for complainants.

Jonathan: So yeah, quite a lot happening there all in one go. I mean, is there anything else that we need to know before I just bring Sam in just to ask him a few questions?

Alanna: No, I think that's probably a bit of a high level summary of what came out from those two consultation papers and the policy statement that all tied together in relation to the FOS.

Jonathan: And there's been there's obviously been changes at the top in FOS as well recently, which has been very heavily publicised. There seems, there's a lot of politics wrapped up in all this as well by the sounds of it. But moving on to politics or things more generally, Sam, you've been speaking to a lot of our clients and other financial services institutions. Reflections on all this, how's it landing? What are people happy to see, perhaps not to see? What's the overall view?

Sam: Yeah, sure. I mean, think a lot of the proposals that Alanna has sort of helpfully summarised will be sort of warmly welcomed by financial institutions. know, we've seen a number of points that the industry has been asking for for a long time, I suppose brought in and the government's of sensibly proposing to introduce a number of changes. There are some things that inevitably where I think industry would have liked government to have gone further in terms of some of the changes. But if I start perhaps on the good as it were, the points that will be very welcome and the headline point that Alanna touched on there was the long stop period. So the proposal from Treasury to introduce a 10-year long stop period for complaints. So that will be an absolute time limit that's brought in subject to an exception that I'll come on to.  That would be very welcome. that will be really I suppose that will align to a degree the sort of time limit period more with this sort of limitation period for claims that you see in the courts as well where, for example, for claims in negligence under section 14A of the Limitation Act, there's a long stop period in there as well. I think that's a very sensible proposal. As I say, there is a proposed exception and Treasury intend to give the FCA power to make exceptions, particularly recognising that there are sometimes there are products that go on for a long period of time.  And so there may be reasons why a different period should apply in some circumstances. But the FCA will need to consult on that and they will do so in due course and we'll need to wait to see the details of that.

The second point that we very much welcomed is the adaption to the fair and reasonable test.  Essentially, what Treasury has said there is that where firms comply with FCA rules as they were enforced at the time, then if they do so, the FOS will have to file they've acted fairly and reasonably. So they've met the statutory test, the FOS to apply, and that's an important change. It could go further and I'll come on to that, but as a headline point, that's helpful.

A third point is the proposed framework which will formalise the roles of FOS and FCA in providing regulatory certainty and allow to talk through that in terms of where there's any ambiguity and how the FCA rules should be interpreted or how they should apply, then the FOS will be under an obligation to raise that with the FCA and the FCA will be required to respond and give its view potentially within 30 days.  That's really important because that will mean that the FCA needs to give an early view on some of these issues. So that should provide greater certainty to firms and greater certainty in the market about the lay of the landscape as it were. It will also avoid FOS interpreting FCA rules in a way that perhaps wasn't intended.  And I thought on that actually it's probably worth bringing Alanna back in because Alanna, you were involved in a recent  judicial review earlier this month that's involved a  number of lenders where there was a challenge to jurisdiction of FOS, where the FOS was looking to go back quite a long period of time and apply quite a novel interpretation of  DISP 2.82.

And interestingly there that the FCA actually came out and sided with the lenders in that case and opposed the FOS position and it did so as an intervener in the litigation. And I just wonder if we had that framework in place earlier, if that may have played out differently, don't know what your thoughts are there.

Alanna: Yeah, I think that's probably correct because as you say, Sam, it was a judicial review by the FOS of four lenders in relation to the FOS's interpretation of DISP 2.8.2r and time bar. And I think, as you say, the FCA confirmed that it agreed with the lender’s interpretation. And so had we had these referral processes in place at the time, I'm guessing that what would have played out would have been the FOS would have, or the firms would have asked for that question to be referred to the FCA, who would have confirmed the lender's position at that stage, rather than  waiting until the court  proceedings. And we may not have ended up  at the judicial review stage at all in that process.

Sam: And then I guess, Jonathan, just another point of thought I was going to briefly cover in terms of the goods. So the framework that's proposed will provide the greater clarity of the roles of FOS and FCA when it comes to things like mass redress events and issues where there are potentially wider implications. And in turn, it will provide greater flexibility for the FCA to sort of step in earlier and manage that. So what that means in practice is that the FCA will have greater powers or have specific powers as proposed to be able to pause complaint handling rules and to directly complain to refer back to firms. And it's set out uh at Annex 5 of the FCA and FOS consultation paper, they've set out a new end-to-end case journey, which quite helpfully sort of just illustrates that in a flowchart form. So that'll be important, and I think in practical terms, what that means for our clients in this space is that  the FOS will hold  certain cases, it will hold at a new pre-registration stage. So rather than charging the case fee and some firms racking up millions of pounds in case fees, firms won't be charged that. So hopefully we will see a more proportionate charges flowing through to financial institutions as well, particularly where cases are held at a registration stage and maybe they're dealt with in a different way going forward.

So I'll touch as well just on the less good as it were or the areas perhaps where our clients might have liked Treasury to go a little bit further. So the fair and reasonable test, as I say, that's been adapted but there were calls within the industry for that to go further and to effectively require the FOS to find that where a firm has complied with the law, then you shouldn't find against them. The government has rejected that proposal in this consultation paper. It doesn't look like it's going to go down that route because it wants to ensure that FOS has the flexibility to decide complaints according to what's fair and reasonable ultimately. I think on that, it's probably worth just taking it back to what's outlined at the start of the consultation papers, which is that a core theme coming through this is the need for FOSS to go back to being seen as a dispute resolution service for resolving individual financial services consumer complaints quickly and effectively, rather than being a quasi-regulator. I think it's with that in mind that the government is tempted not to change the fair and reasonable tests or radically.

And then a couple of other points that where reform could have gone further perhaps, and it doesn't look like it is going to. First, is there won't be any right of appeal of false decisions. So that was something that some of the industry had called for, possibly a right of referral to the upper tribunal, for example. That's not going to be introduced, it seems. And as well as Alanna has touched on, it's proposed that there'll be changes, legislative changes to Section 404, which is the consumer redress scheme that the power of the FCA has to impose a consumer redress scheme across the market. We'll need to see what the details of that are, but that could be quite an expansion of the FCA's powers there, based on what's sort of mentioned in the consultation paper.

Jonathan: It does seem that what these proposals are seeking to do is really reestablish FOS in the way that it was intended at the very beginning of its life. Going back to, as you say, that quick, economical  centre for sorting out small value disputes in a very clear way, not going beyond and above that relatively simple, straightforward purpose. Is that what's happening here?

Sam: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think that will be welcomed all around. I think everyone agrees, FOS plays a really important role  in determining those individual complaints. I think the tension has come where FOS has been seen in some cases, a minority of cases, but nonetheless an impactful minority of cases to have effectively acted as a quasi-regulator because of the implications of its findings and the way firms need to need to apply those under the under this spent, of course, consumer duty. So I completely agree with that. And I think, you know, on the whole, the changes will be welcome.

Perhaps one of the things Jonathan, I should have mentioned as well, is that one other area that isn't going to change that perhaps could have changed is the test case procedure under this. So the listeners will know that be familiar that there is a test case procedure under this, but where the false can refer a case to the courts for a determination. You need the complainant's consent to do that. And one of the calls was for that to be used more. It has never been used. FOS was confirmed in court before. So it is a procedure that's never been used. And Treasury has decided not to change that provision. So it's probably difficult to see how it will be used going forward. But I guess it's something to sort of and see.

Jonathan: OK. All right. Just moving on to something slightly different, but nevertheless noted in the consultation papers is the frustration that many of our financial institutions feel regarding the role of claimant law firms and case management companies. I think that many of our clients find that the behaviours from some of these SRA regulated entities are particularly troubling. Alanna, could you just talk us through how the SRA  has been tackling this?

Alanna: Yeah, of course, Jonathan. I mean, this point is noted in the consultations, but the FOS and FCA have not actually proposed to make any further changes at this stage to the role of the professional representatives. The concerns are noted by the industry and appear to be understood from what's said in the consultation papers. But the FOS has said it very much continues to take forward other measures to improve the quality of complaints from professional representatives, so  including their introduction of the mandatory online form. They've been running a pilot for irresponsible lending cases where they required further information to be submitted before the complaints were turned to chargeable complaints.  And obviously, of course, introduction of fee charging. But I think

for a number of years, there's been a lot of industry focus on concerns over the role of claimant firms in bulk claims and what more the SRA can be doing.  And real frustration from lenders and I suppose firms about looking at improving that reputation of the legal services sector and ensuring that people can have faith in solicitors, firms, et cetera. And I say, although nothing substantial has come about yet, it does actually feel like there is bit more awareness and a bit of a momentum. Say, for example, I think the government and the SRA have met recently to discuss concerns over the activities of firms running these bulk claims. And there have been some real major concerns of some of the claimant law firms closing down and leaving clients with really quite substantial cost orders against them. So, for example, we saw a lot in the press about SSB law firm and the cavity wall installation litigation.

I think on the 18th July, the SRA published its reflections from its June and July board meetings,  where again, high volume consumer claims was high on the agenda. And again, the SRA sort of spoke about some of the steps it's trying to take. It has said it's committing significant resources to tackling the issues, and it's now investigating more than 70 firms working in this area and has said that it will take enforcement action where needed. It's also said it will be writing to relevant firms and to remind them of their obligations.

I think it's recognised that actually the SRA on its own can't necessarily cover all the different issues  and so it's committed again to working with other regulators and the government to help deliver that sort of cross-sector response.  I know, having spoken to a lot of lenders in this space, a real big area of pressure at the moment is in relation to motor commission claims and complaints and the role of the claimant law firms and CMCs in this space. I think for those who have read the FCA's considerations in implementing a possible motor finance consumer redress scheme, so that the SRA is keen that a scheme is implemented, it would be simple for consumers to participate in without needing to use a CMC or claimant law firm. I think the SRA again appears to note these concerns.  So I think on the 3rd of July, they did put out a note in relation to claims management activity in car finance and compensation schemes and said that the SRA expects firms to be explaining to prospective clients about the possibility of a compensation scheme. And I think that's a good start, but we need to make sure that the SRA  is going a bit further and continuing to provide updates to consumers about the role of  CMCs and claimant law firms in motor commission complaints because we're seeing a lot of activity  in this area at the moment.

Jonathan: Yeah, there's always been a lot of commentary around the resources of the SRA to adequately deal with some of these major issues. And I wonder if that's still present in terms of that resource they have. You talk about 70 being investigated. It's going to be really interesting to see what comes out of that and the speed at which it happens. But of course, you've kind of piqued our interest now, Alanna, because we couldn't let this moment pass just as we are uh wrapping up this podcast. We couldn't let the moment pass without mentioning the hotly anticipated Supreme Court decision on Motor Commission. Sam, what's the temperature like at the moment in relation to that? Just remind us of the key issues, but what are we looking at in terms of maybe timing or what we're going to expect?

Sam: Of course, Jonathan. I suspect listeners will be very familiar with these cases, given how much has been said and written about them in recent months, but in a nutshell: according to appeal decided in October 2024, that car dealers when acting as credit brokers, owe both a disinterested duty and an ad-hoc fiduciary duty to customers when acting as a credit broker and selling a vehicle. And they found that there were three cases before the Court of Appeal. And they found that in two of those cases, the lenders were liable in bribery for paying commissions to the car dealers. And they were fully secret commission cases, notwithstanding the fact that in one of those cases, there was actually disclosure of the existence of commission. But the Court of Appeal found that that disclosure was insufficient to negate secrecy. And then in the third case, it was accepted that there was disclosure of the existence of commission and the Court of Appeal nevertheless found that because the car dealer was sent away with fiduciary duty or they found that a fiduciary duty was owed on the facts of that case, they also found the lender responsible as an accessory to the broker's breach of fiduciary duty and as a result the lender was responsible. That was notwithstanding the fact that really there was no evidence of dishonesty by the lender in that case and that's a core ingredient for excessive reliability  as the Court of Appeal has since reiterated in another case called Expert Toulene and Engie, another commission case that is due to go to the Supreme Court in the near future. What the court also found is that in one of the cases there was an allegation of unfair relationships under Section 140A of the Consumer Credit Act and the Court of Appeal found that the relationship was unfair as a result of the particular commission arrangements in that case and the perceived high level of commission in that case and certain other facts that are relevant. So that led to a significant degree of attention, as listeners will know, and an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court that was heard at the start of April and the Supreme Court indicated then that it was hoping to give judgment during the course of July.  In the last public update from the Supreme Court, which was filed by the president, Lord Reid, he was giving evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee. He indicated back in June that the Supreme Court was still hoping to give judgment before the end of July. So we're all watching with  bated breath as to whether that arrives by the end of July. At the time of recording, it's the 22nd of July now. We don't think the judgment will come this week. It's not on the Supreme Court's list of future judgments, but it's possible it could come on the 30th of July, which is a Wednesday. The Supreme Court typically hands judgments down on a Wednesday. I think in terms of what can we expect - Well, the Supreme Court obviously has something to say about this judgment. It's dealt with it in a fairly unprecedented way in terms of how quickly it's dealt with it. And it's going to give judgment very quickly as well for the Supreme Court, it often takes a lot longer to it. And, you know, I think as well, it was telling when the president of the Supreme Court was giving evidence, as I say, in the House of Lords Constitution Committee last month, and he described it as the most important commercial case the Supreme Court had heard in the last year. So I think that gives us a sense of the gravity of the decision and the fact that justices recognise just how important this judgment will be.

Jonathan: Yeah. OK. All right. Well, look, thanks, Sam, and thank you, Alanna. We'll wait and see. And listeners, we will be releasing a special podcast in relation to that judgment as soon, or very shortly after it lands, just to give some initial thoughts that we have around it. So do listen out for that.

Sam, Alanna, thanks very much.  And thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you found that very helpful and useful. uh Please do remember to subscribe to our podcast in your usual way. And we'll look forward to the next episode, which could be very, very soon. So thanks very much indeed, everyone. Bye for now.

Jonathan Hoey: Hi and welcome everyone to a new Bitesize TLT podcast series for the financial services sector.  Thank you very much for joining. We're going to do a deep dive into some of the hottest topics in this sector and hopefully be entertaining along the way.

I'm joined by Emma. In fact, I should say who I am first. I'm Jonathan Hoey. I'm a partner here at TLT and I specialise in financial services matters. And today, I'm joined by Emma Erskine-Fox, who's a partner in our tech IP and data team.  Quite a mouthful, but Emma has recently been identified as one of the hot 100 lawyers in the country by the Lawyer Magazine. So, we're really, really excited to have Emma with us today. Welcome Emma, how are you?

Emma Erskine-Fox: Hi Jonathan, thanks so much for having me on. I'm good, thank you. I’m really excited to chat about this topic with you.  We're going to talk about agentic AI which is a real kind of buzzword and a real hot topic in the AI space at the moment. I've already been doing lots of talking about it this week, I was speaking about it at a conference earlier in the week, so I'm really excited to be on the podcast and to chat about it with you.

Jonathan: Well, I'm glad you mentioned agentic AI because I will put my hands up now and say I have very little understanding about what this is and I’m sure a number of us are in a similar boat or at least I hope we are.  I understand what generative AI is, but agentic AI seems to be taking us into a whole new direction. What actually is it?

Emma: Yeah, and it's a really good point, Jonathan. And I think it’s really emblematic of how fast AI technology moves.  You know, it feels sometimes like almost every week, they're coming out with new terms and new phrases that everybody suddenly has to get to grips with.  In terms of agentic AI, I mean, you've mentioned generative AI and I think the starting point for agentic AI really is that it's not a new technology. It's not a new type of technology.

It's a new development and actually generative AI is the underlying technology for agentic AI. The main difference with agentic AI compared to the generative AI, that we're a bit more used to now is the level of autonomy. So typical large language models, which is a type of generative AI, create content based on static data sources that they are fed and based on user prompts. Whereas agentic AI, as the name might suggest, has agency of its own, so the human kind of sets the goal, the end goal, but it's the AI agent that decides how it's going to meet that goal, that designs the workflows to enable it to do that,  decides which data it's going to call on, and then also can actually execute tasks on behalf of the human. So, it’s a whole new layer of autonomy and independence, I suppose.

Jonathan: Okay.  Well, thank you for enlightening me.  I wonder what the particular opportunities are for this development within the financial services sector. Based on, it's obviously a very fast moving, but based on what you know now, what sort of opportunities do you see in the sector for agentic AI?

Emma: Yeah, and I mean, there are loads of opportunities, you know, I mentioned that I'd spoken at this conference about just this topic earlier in the week, and I had two panellists on my panel who are both, you know, real financial services experts. And, you know, if there's one thing that everybody agreed on, is that there is huge potential for this, albeit that it's fairly early days at the moment.  And there are definitely use cases in it for fraud detection and kind of increased automation of fraud detection processes.

Customer service for lending decisioning as well. And perhaps just to kind of bring an example to life, suppose, complaints handling is one that occurs to me. So, you could, for example, have an AI agent that deals with customer complaints. And let's say, you know, a common complaint that we see sometimes in the sector is that, you know, a customer, for example, the systems haven't updated with a new address, and something's been sent to the wrong address, and the customer phones up and wants to make a complaint about that. And so, you could have either an AI agent in a chat bot or actually an AI agent on the phone. And they sound very convincingly human as well a lot of the time. You could have an AI agent who effectively manages that entire complaint. So who speaks to the customer, who decides what questions they're going to ask the customer to get the information that they need who then analyses that information and effectively decides what steps to take. It could then be integrated with other systems in the bank so that it could then, for example, update the system with the new address. It could also make decisions about, are we going to offer any compensation to this customer and what's the next step in that complaint, et cetera, and execute those tasks required.  So hopefully that's a bit of an example to help. bring it to life a little bit in terms of what we're talking about with this new development.

Jonathan: So I suppose one thing the customers might see as a result of that would be a much speedier way of getting from A to B so that they get their complaint resolved much quicker.  And let’s face it, all of us would like that if we were in that position.

Emma: Yeah, definitely.

Jonathan: Yeah. I suppose. As with all of these things, there is risk attached.  And just listening to what you were just talking about just now, I had this vision of Stanley Kubrick's film 2001, A Space Odyssey, where Hal, the computer, goes out of control and I’d start trying to do all sorts of silly things like crashing spaceships and that sort of thing.  I'm just wondering. Obviously, that's a very extreme and fictional example, but I'm just wondering the additional risks for FS firms in using this sort of technology where there's less human involvement and not only that, where things are moving without necessarily human intervention as it develops and develops.  So, what are the risks that you see in all of this?

Emma: Yeah, and it's such a good question. And there's a lot that we could say here. There's a lot to think about.  I think a lot of the risks that arise out of agentic AI really are kind of risks that already exist with generative AI, but they are kind of increased and compounded, I suppose that, as you say, the fact that there's much less human involvement in it than in previous models. So just to pull out kind of a few of the key risks, I think, that occurred to me.

The first is hallucinations, which for anybody who hasn't heard that term before, that refers to when a generative AI model, like a large language model, gives you an incorrect answer, essentially, if it can't find the answer to something in the data sets that it's got,  it will sometimes make things up to plug that gap, rather than just admitting, sorry, I don't know the answer, it will make things up.

And in agentic AI models, often you have kind of several, it's a sort of multi-agent model. So, you have several different models, several different systems involved.  And so you think that, you know, there's a hallucination in one system then gets fed through into another model, for example, and then through into another. And you could see how that the impact of that could then be compounded.  And that could then lead to, you know, unintended consequences and sort of bias or discriminatory decisions and things like that.

The second one that I wanted to pull out is around transparency and explainability, which has now become a word. I'm not sure it was a word a couple of years ago, but explainability is now definitely a word that's commonly used when we're talking about AI.  And the idea of that, so that there are all sorts of obligations in the laws and regulations surrounding AI around being transparent about your use of personal data, but also your use of AI in a consumer facing context but also being able to explain the decisions that are made by an AI model or an AI system.  And that becomes much harder to do. It becomes harder to explain how the model works and how decisions are made if there's less human input, because we just don't have as much understanding of what's going on within that model.  It's kind of doing its own thing to an extent.  So, it's harder to know and to explain what's going on with the data that's you know, being processed to make that decision and how it's being processed to come to those decisions.

There's a real challenge with accountability as well. You know, I mentioned that there are often sort of these multi-agent models.  And again, if there are several models involved and something goes wrong in that chain, working out where the responsibility and the liability lies is really challenging. And as a bank, for example, if you are using these agentic AI solutions, you know, from a customer perspective, you're still going to be expected to be accountable for that.

So, you know, making sure that you can kind of audit what's going on, I think is difficult, but really important.  And the final thing perhaps to mention and not to perhaps open a can of worms on it, it’s hard to kind of escape the elephant in the room, which is the potential impact on jobs of this kind of technology.  You know, as you said, it's the sort of thing that, you know, if you're automating processes and you're making things much quicker and much more efficient for the customer, but you're also doing that for the bank. You know, you're making things quicker and more efficient for the organization, for the firm.  And that could have a knock-on effect on jobs as well.

Jonathan: Yeah, I think that that's long been a view about certain risks in this area. I remember being at a partner's conference a number of years ago where a technology expert  surveyed the entire floor of all these sort of starting to be worried looking partners when he said, in 15 years, half of you will not be here because you won't have jobs. That was well over 15 years ago. And actually, we still do have jobs, It's just the job looks different.

Emma: I completely agree with that. And I think, know, generally speaking, my view personally has always been that AI isn't going to replace jobs. What it's going to do is change jobs. It's going to change the skills that are needed, the skills that we educate people on at school. It's going to change how roles look. There are going to be all sorts of jobs that come out of AI as well. know, prompt engineer is now a job and that wasn't a job three years ago, you know.  So it's, there is, when I talk about kind of potential impact, you know, I'm not, I'm  not trying to sort of scaremonger or suggest that there are going to be massive job losses as a result of this, because I don't think that's the case, but it is going to change what those jobs look like, I think.

Jonathan: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that we know AI is here to stay in all its new and evolving forms. And you've mentioned a number of risks that just now and you talked a little bit about how some of them might be managed. But just expanding on that slightly in terms of how our first firms can future proof their frameworks and strategies to make sure that this development still works well for them.

Is there anything else to add to some management of risks that would be helpful?

Emma: Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, we're at a point now, I think, over the last couple of years, what we've seen in the sector and beyond is firms and organisations, you know, really kind of starting to embed AI governance frameworks, or at least embed AI governance into existing frameworks. So, there's been a lot of focus on that recently. And you know, all of that will track through to agentic AI in much the same way as it tracks through to generative AI more generally, you know.

And I'll just go back to what I said at the very start that this isn't a new technology, it's a new development of an existing technology. So, you know, there is no reason why existing frameworks can't work for that technology, as long as they are designed to be flexible enough. And I always think a really good starting point for anything AI related, any new development in AI is always ethics.

So really it should be ethical principles that are driving the governance of AI, the development of AI, its implementation, its deployment, its use across the firm. Ethics should always be really at the centre of that. And that doesn't change with agentic AI. As an example, I've advised a client recently on an agentic AI voice assistant, effectively, which was in the kind of complaint or it wasn't complaints handling, but it was in a sort customer service space handling specific customer service inquiries. And one of the conversations that we had was around, know, well, should this be, should this be the only way that these queries can be dealt with, you know, should we be offering people alternative options if they don't want to speak to an AI agent, if they'd rather speak to a human. And so, and some of that comes down not to legal questions, but to ethical questions of is it fair to expect that? And for certain demographics and for vulnerable customers potentially as well, which obviously is a big thing for financial services firms to be thinking about, really coming back to is this process fair? How would I feel if it was my data? How would I feel if it was my parents' data or my grandparents' data? Or really thinking it from an ethical perspective, I think can really help.  And I think I'd also say, we've talked about the sort of human intervention side of things, and I think trying not to see agentic AI as a replacement of entire end-to-end processes is helpful as well.

You know, always looking at where human intervention can come in, you know, making sure that  there is  continuous testing, continuous auditing of outputs to make sure that there isn't bias being baked into this  and making sure that, you know, you've got really robust, holistic risk management processes in place to assess the risks of any new solution. Again, is a general point across the whole of AI, the whole of tech really.  So, yeah, those are some of the things that kind of come to mind and are all things that we are talking to clients about and working with clients on at the moment.

Jonathan: Yeah, I think that what it comes to me as you were just speaking then was the ability for clients to segment tasks. So, you can have humans doing certain bits and then have a form of AI doing other bits to allow the human to concentrate on what they really need to concentrate on.  I think that maybe that segmentation is also a part of how risks can be managed, potentially.

Emma: I definitely agree with that, Jonathan. think, you know, the more sort of human in the loop you can get with this, the better, I think, because, you know, there is a balance because, you know, the point of AI often is to drive those efficiencies and speed things up.  You know, so it has to do that, know, but also has to work with the human to do that. So, the looking at the points at which you can introduce humans, which bits of this can be automated by AI, which bits of this do we actually still need a human to be involved with?  I think that's a really good way of looking at it.

Jonathan: Okay, we have covered a lot of ground in a relatively short space of time.  If there’s one key takeaway for everyone coming out of our discussion, what would it be?

Emma: Yeah, so hard to pick one, I suppose, as you say, there's lot to think about. But I think with, I mean, agentic AI, you know, I talked about it at the start as a buzzword, and it is a bit of a buzzword. And it's with any buzzword, especially around AI, it's very easy to get caught up in the hype and in the buzz around it. And so, as I say, agentic AI has massive potential, I think, but it is quite early days, and it's not always going to be the right solution and isn't necessarily going to solve all the issues that are clients are seeing and all of their pain points.  You know, a common issue that we see across FS, for example, is, you know, dealing with legacy systems and legacy data. And actually, quite an important step before you can really leverage agentic AI fully is to get those systems and data in the right shape first before you kind of get too carried away. So, I think I'd say it's really exciting for sure. It's still early days, definitely needs to be thought through really carefully and always coming back to applying that ethical lens to the consideration of agentic AI solutions.

Jonathan: I have a very funny feeling that we'll be doing another podcast on this subject very, very soon. In terms of what the next development looks like, but look, Emma, thank you. That was brilliant. You've certainly educated me, and I hope that for those of you who listening, it's been very helpful to you too.  So, thanks for listening.  Please remember to subscribe on your usual podcast provider to our series.  Our series will be continuing over the coming weeks and months and years and what we're going to try and do is pick out the areas which we think are the most interesting, and please do visit tlt.com to listen in for more episodes. We'll keep a bank of them all there so you can access them at any time through that particular method but for now thanks for listening. Thank you, Emma, and cheerio.

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