On 25 April 2013, HM Treasury published a consultation paper on the introduction of a Special Administration Regime (SAR) for inter-bank payment systems (such as Bacs, CHAPS, Continuous Linked Settlement, CREST, LCH Clearnet Ltd, Faster Payments Service and ICE Clear Europe), operators of securities settlement systems (CREST being the only example in the UK) and key service providers to these firms (e.g. IT and telecommunications providers). Responses are requested by Wednesday 19 June 2013.
The SAR would be a variant of a normal corporate administration and would be modelled on the special administration framework used in the utilities industries and the investment bank SAR. However, it would be modified to allow the Bank of England to exercise control of the SAR process, to enable a special administrator to transfer all or part of the business to an aquirer on an expedited basis, and to facilitate the enforcement of restrictions on early termination of third party contracts. Under the SAR, the special administrator would have the overarching objective of maintaining the continuity of critical payment and settlement services in the interest of UK financial stability. “Non-CCP FMI”, such as exchanges and trade repositories, and entities already covered by resolution powers for central counterparties (such as LCH and ICE) would be excluded from the regime.
On 25 April 2013, HM Treasury also published a statement confirming the fact that, before the end of the summer, it will consult on the extension of the special resolution regime (SRR) established under the Banking Act 2009 to group companies, investment firms and UK clearing houses.
Recovery and Resolution Plans 