Today’s post is a guest post from Teny Kuti, a first-year student in Aston University’s Law School. The post discusses the various effects of the forthcoming HS2 high-speed rail link, as well as some of the potential consequences moving forward. Please follow Teny via Twitter here , and his own blog The Whole Spectrum for an interesting take on a number of different issues, ranging from politics to business. Frequently described as the most substantial rail project ever built in the UK set to open in 2026, High speed rail 2 will form a high-speed link between Birmingham and London, reducing the travel time to 49 minutes. However, the project has never been shy of controversy. Since the HS2 received Government approval in 2012, it has seen strong opposition from those who would lose their homes on the current plans and indeed, HS2 Ltd has claimed that 1,740 buildings would be destroyed by the rail line, with nearly 900 being homes. Now with the recent developments such as the C...

Back in August 2017 we looked at the concept of the ‘private finance initiative’, and also the differences between ‘public private partnerships’ and ‘private finance initiatives’, which has also been dissected in the literature . We looked at the issue of Carillion and the aspects that underpinned its high-profile collapse. However, for this post, the question will be whether the recent developments at Interserve, the massive provider of public services in the UK, is part of a general trend or an indication of a fundamental flaw within the model that is being adopted currently. Interserve began as London and Tilbury Lighterage Company Limited in the late 1800s, and through a number of phases of expansion over the century and more that followed, the company was renamed Interserve Plc in 2001. The company has a global reach, but for this post our focus will be on its role within the UK, where its function is particularly vital. According to Interserve itself, it has reported ...

As is the remit of Financial Regulation Matters , it should not be surprising that analysing financial regulators is of key concern for this blog. In doing that, however, we get to see the diverging experiences of a financial regulator, and how differing approaches yield very different results. We have examined a number of regulators throughout the years in this blog, and two have factored heavily in our analyses. Today, we revisit the two particular stories which have evolved recently and left the respective regulators facing a number of criticisms. The SFO’s Pursuit of Tesco Directors Fails We examined the case of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launching proceedings against three Tesco Executives back in February. Then we discussed how the SFO were alleging that fraud by abuse of position, and false accounting were the crimes of Carl Rogberg, John Scouler, and Christopher Bush. That post asked whether the SFO would continue in their pursuit, and shortly afterwards it was ...

Today’s post comes from Oluwarotimi Adeniyi-Akintola, a PhD student in Aston Law School. Rotimi’s doctoral research focuses upon corporate governance forms within Nigeria. For more from Rotimi, please follow his twitter profile here and his blog page on Medium here . As you may have heard, Carlos Ghosn, one of the most prominent figures in the automotive industry, was arrested in Tokyo on November 19, 2018 . According to Japanese prosecutors, he stands accused of financial improprieties and the falsification of annual securities reports , which could result in a jail term of 10 years, a fine of 10m yen, or both. His arrest has sparked corporate crises across two continents and marks an astonishing reversal in fortune for a man many consider to be the lifeblood of the titanic Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (RNM) alliance. In many ways, Ghosn’s story is a demonstration of how the concentration of power in key individuals can result in a complete failure of corporate governance at ev...

We have looked at issues within the Higher Education sector here in Financial Regulation Matters before, mostly in relation to student finances , student accommodation , and also sector-related pensions . However, after some recent developments it is important to take a look at Universities as institutions and, crucially, the position that regulators are finding themselves in, despite any ideological claims as to their operating mandate. As the story develops that, recently, a British University was essentially ‘bailed out’ by the Government, it will be of interest to examine the regulatory reality that the recently-formed Office for Students (OfS) has found itself being exposed to. It was reported towards the end of this week that ‘ a UK university had to be given an emergency loan of almost £1m by the higher education watchdog to stay afloat this autumn ’. The BBC continued by stating that the OfS provided the money when the university faced the prospect of running out of ca...

We know here in Financial Regulation Matters that the audit industry is currently reeling from a number of high profile scandals regarding their involvement in corporate collapses. KPMG’s role in the collapse of both Carillion and BHS, alongside the involvement of their Big Four counterparts in the same, and in different scandals has led to calls to break up the ‘Big Four’ auditors . Whilst we have discussed this issue before , the Big Four (at least members of the Oligopoly) have now proposed a different solution, and have taken strides to enforce their will by taking action. However, there are a number of vital questions that stem from their decision. KPMG, announcing the move on Thursday, stated that they are to drop the availability of consultancy, or ‘non-audit’ services to clients they are simultaneously auditing , focusing on FTSE 350 clients specifically. Whilst a date for the policy change has not been confirmed, the Chair of the firm’s UK division stated that the move...