MS Amlin suffers £9.7m regulatory fine for lapses in governance

MS Amlin Underwriting has been slapped with £9.7 million in fines for a broad swath of governance and oversight failures running through 2019, the UK's  Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has said.

“The penalty reflects the seriousness of [MS Amlin’s] failure to meet the expected standards in this case, and should deter similar conduct by other firms,” the CEO of PRA and central bank deputy governor for prudential regulation, Sam Woods, was quoted saying.

It remains “vital” that firms “remediate issues identified by the PRA in a full and timely manner.”

The PRA claims to have voiced concerns all along about how the MS Amlin unit ran its business following a 2014 move to organise underwriting via three business units. The PRA claims the unit had failed to embed a strong risk culture and sufficiently defined organization responsibilities to stay within risk management guidelines.

That put MS Amlin afoul of Fundamental Rule 5 requiring firms to have “effective risk strategies and risk management systems” and Fundamental Rule 6 requiring firms “organise and control their affairs responsibly and effectively.”

MS Amlin’s agreement to remediation cut the eventual fine by 30% from the would-be £13.85 million price-tag.

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