Introduction to Symposium: Revolution in the Regulation of Financial Advice: The U.S., the U.K. and Australia

(Excerpt) This Symposium brought together legal academics, practicing lawyers and business people to discuss new directions in the regulation of financial advice to retail investors. Recently, this has been the subject of many initiatives around the world. The Symposium examined three of these initiatives in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In the U.S., the approach historically has been based on disclosure to manage conflicts of interest.

Although the U.K. and Australia have not done away with disclosure, they have moved to banning certain practices, especially in the area of compensation to investment advisers from product providers that can result in conflicts of interest between an investment adviser and its clients.