Lead Legal Counsel/ Regulatory Compliance Officer in City of Westminster

Lead Legal Counsel/ Regulatory Compliance Officer (Marketing & Trading)

South West London – 3 days per week in office, 2 days per week from home

Inside IR35

Initial 12 Month Contract

Do you have a strong background within Regulatory Compliance across marketing and trading? This could be the role for you!

Purpose of Role:
This position will be responsible for monitoring trading activities to ensure compliance with relevant regulations. The role will involve collaborating with the marketing and trading, and marketing and trading legal teams to enhance monitoring activities, introduce control processes, and develop risk mitigation strategies.
Critical Responsibilities:
As the Regulatory Compliance Officer (Marketing & Trading), you will be ensuring that all activities are carried out in a safe manner complying with all regulatory requirements, legislation and company procedures
Ethics and Compliance Responsibilities:
As the Regulatory Compliance Officer (Marketing & Trading), you will ensure that all activities and behaviours are carried out in accordance with company ethics and Compliance Policies and Procedures, and to complete any compulsory compliance training as required
Areas of Accountability, Responsibility and Competence:
• Regulatory compliance risk register:
o develop and maintain a risk register to capture the principal legal and regulatory risks (market abuse/financial crime)
o manage and lead risk assessment activities to identify potential M&T Regulatory risks and develop strategies to mitigate them effectively. Be forward looking in seeking to identify risks and making proactive recommendations to the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer to mitigate/eliminate such risks.
• Policies and procedures to strengthen:
o roll out of key (updated) M&T processes including the Market Conduct Standard and REMIT
§ Market Conduct Standard: work to widen the scope and types of offences relevant to company activity
§ REMIT: formalise the REMIT framework (which will include a policy and a separate procedure) to ensure accountability for responsibilities under REMIT are clearly defined
o updates to other processes including:
§ Conflict of Interest Procedure (in development) to restrict personal account dealing / update to the optimisation standard to ensure hardwired limits around non-hedging proprietary transactions
§ Transaction monitoring procedures
• Regulatory reporting:
o coordinate regulatory reporting across M&T functions / finalise a responsibilities matrix with:
§ middle office as first line team for reporting
§ treasury performing the position limit threshold monitoring
§ E&C responsible for submitting regulatory / exemption applications
o manage breach reporting and notifications to regulators
o manage the interface with relevant relevant regulators
• Key physical controls to implement and manage:
o Introduce right sized market surveillance systems: introduce manual M&T surveillance system to detect suspicious transactions and/or orders
o Introduce information barriers: introduce information barriers and/or other mitigations appropriate for our Business to ensure compliance with any separation needed of hedging and non-hedging proprietary transactions (and other transactions that could have outsized market abuse risk)
• Training:
o Market abuse training to whole M&T organisation: M&T organisation wide training to reflect the evolution / current and future state of the M&T business
o Market abuse training to traders: training on specific topics to traders to reflect the enhanced risks across expanded company business
o Other training/mentoring as required: training to the wider Ethics and Compliance team and to the Legal team and other functions as needed
• Monitoring/Horizon Scanning
o Keep pace with changes in legislation, regulation and market practice. Advise on how to adapt to best effect.
o Ongoing monitoring of M&T regulatory compliance risks, including regular risk assessments and the implementation of mitigating actions. Be forward looking in seeking to identify risks and making proactive recommendations to mitigate/eliminate such risks.
• Record-keeping and application of appropriate retention periods:
o manage M&T record keeping ensuring compliance with relevant regulations e.g. EMIR (derivatives), REMIT (gas supply and gas derivatives),etc…
o ensure that all relevant transaction documents and data (contracts and relevant data to support contracts) meets mandatory retention periods
• Any reasonable instruction from the Line Manager
Critical Skills, Qualifications,
Experience, etc.:
• As the Regulatory Compliance Officer (Marketing & Trading), you will have a Bachelor’s degree in law, business administration, or related field is essential.
• Strong understanding of relevant regulations and industry standards.
• As the Regulatory Compliance Officer (Marketing & Trading), you will have previous experience in a regulatory compliance within Marketing and Trading is essential.
• Strong attention to detail and analytical skills.
• Self-starter, strong initiative and ability to work under minimal supervision
• Excellent communication and organisational skills.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Ability to handle multiple projects and work in a team environment
• Awareness of company HSEQ Policies and Business Management System (BMS)
• Awareness of company Values & Business Principles

First Recruitment Group are committed to finding the right candidates for our clients, and the right companies for our candidates to work for. We’re passionate about putting people first, and take pride in being able to offer an all-round service for candidates and clients with our payroll solution, MyPay+ and workforce management solution, Operam.

As part of putting people first, we strive to be an equal opportunities employer and we are always looking to increase the diversity of our workforce, working closely with our clients to ensure everyone is included.