The financial promotion restriction is one of the most important aspects of the regime introduced by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) for lawyers and their business clients. It sets the boundaries of what can and cannot be communicated about investments without the involvement of a financial adviser.
During its consultation on financial promotion, the Government said its aim was to maintain a regime that was broadly similar in scope to the investment advertisement and cold calling regime, which it replaced, but to “clarify and rationalise” the regime, modernise it so that it became media neutral and clarify the exemptions which had become complex and unwieldy. None of these aims have been achieved. In fact, quite the contrary – the scope of the regime is much wider, it is even more complicated than the one it replaced and the crucial exemptions are unclear in scope.
