Treasury committee slams FSA over ad policies
MPs demand watchdog make findings public
The influential all
party
Treasury committee has criticised the UK’s chief financial watchdog, the
Financial Services Authority, for not making its rulings on financial
advertising public.
Committee chairman John
McFall MP has written to FSA chairman Sir Callum McCarthy complaining about
its methods.
The committee said the FSA should copy the policy of
the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA),
which makes its findings public.
In its defence, a spokesperson for the FSA told the BBC that it pursued
hundreds of complaints every year about misleading adverts, and ‘can’t just
issue a formal censure of a firm’.
By comparison, the ASA publishes its rulings on its web site and the more
interesting ones are regularly reported by newspapers and broadcasters.
Further reading:
FSA to issue leveraged loan warning