UK financial watchdog expands bullying rules to 37,000 City firms
The UK’s financial watchdog is expanding bullying and harassment rules to more than 37,000 City firms, in an effort to crack down on “rolling bad apples” who avoid consequences by hopping from firm to firm,It means that “serious, substantiated cases of poor personal behaviour” by senior managers at a range of firms including hedge funds, insurers and pension firms will have to be reported to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as well as future employers who are assessing whether new hires are fit and proper for the job,Previously, only banks were required to report bad behaviour to the watchdog,The rules will now apply to tens of thousands of other firms across the City that are bound by the so-called senior managers and certification regime (SM&CR) that is meant to hold senior bosses accountable for wrongdoing at their firms,The regulator said the expanded rules would help “prevent ‘rolling bad apples’ – people moving from firm to firm without appropriate action being taken or without past serious non-financial misconduct being disclosed”.
Sarah Pritchard, the FCA’s deputy chief executive, said: “Too often when we see problems in the market, there are cultural failings in firms.Behaviour like bullying or harassment going unchallenged is one of the reddest flags – a culture where this occurs can raise questions about a firm’s decision-making and risk management.“Our new rules will help drive consistency across industry and support the vast majority of firms that want to do the right thing to deepen trust in financial services.”The expanded rules on non-financial misconduct, which also cover racism, sexual harassment and violence and intimidation, will come into force on 1 September 2026.However, they will not apply to payments and e-money firms, regulated investment exchanges or credit ratings agencies, none of which are subject to SM&CR rules.
The FCA recently won a tribunal challenge brought by the former Barclays boss Jes Staley, with judges upholding a lifetime ban against the former chief executive for misleading the regulator over the nature of his relationship with the convicted child sexual abuse offender Jeffrey Epstein and their last point of contact.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe new rules come despite the FCA and fellow regulators facing mounting pressure from the government to slash red tape for businesses.
AI companies start winning the copyright fight
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. If you need me after this newsletter publishes, I will be busy poring over photos from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, the gaudiest and most star-studded affair to disrupt technology news this year. I found it a tacky and spectacular affair. Everyone who was anyone was there, except for Charlize Theron, who, unprompted, said on Monday: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK, because they suck and we’re cool
China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match
They think it’s all over … for human footballers at least.The pitch wasn’t the only artificial element on display at a football match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won’t be taking Kylian Mbappé’s job just yet.Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a “vibe check” on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals.Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.A few hours later he added that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up
Gov.uk smartphone app to launch with limited functionality
A government app intended to “cut life admin” will be free to download by millions of UK citizens from Tuesday, but its functions will be limited and the cabinet minister in charge has admitted: “The design is not as we would like it to be.”The gov.uk app will be accessible on smartphones for people aged 16 and over and is intended to be the main mobile hub for many citizen interactions with the government, although not the NHS or HM Revenue and Customs.Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, said the version launched this week would only steer users to existing government webpages, with more functionality to be added by the end of the year.A generative artificial intelligence chatbot trained on 700,000 pages of the gov
Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions
Microsoft has revealed details of an artificial intelligence system that performs better than human doctors at complex health diagnoses, creating a “path to medical superintelligence”.The company’s AI unit, which is led by the British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, has developed a system that imitates a panel of expert physicians tackling “diagnostically complex and intellectually demanding” cases.Microsoft said that when paired with OpenAI’s advanced o3 AI model, its approach “solved” more than eight of 10 case studies specially chosen for the diagnostic challenge. When those case studies were tried on practising physicians – who had no access to colleagues, textbooks or chatbots – the accuracy rate was two out of 10.Microsoft said it was also a cheaper option than using human doctors because it was more efficient at ordering tests
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