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Simon Morris

Partner

Portrait of Simon Morris

Simon Morris

Partner

Contact
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English, Spanish

Simon Morris has been a partner in the firm’s Financial Markets team since 1988, having joined the firm in 1980 and qualified as a solicitor in 1982.

He advises a wide range of UK and overseas financial institutions on regulatory matters including in relation to market conduct, systems and controls, governance, and responding to regulatory concerns.

Simon has represented firms in over 500 regulatory and enforcement proceedings brought by the UK PRA and FCA, their predecessors and overseas regulators.

He has extensive experience in the establishment and operation of international financial centres and is a Commissioner of the Jersey Financial Services Commission and has been a Director of the Ras al Khaimah (UAE) International Corporate Centre.

Simon is a member of the City of London Law Society Regulatory Committee and author of Financial Services Regulation in Practice (Oxford UP 2016). He was named as the Best Regulatory Lawyer of 2008 at Complinet’s Fourth Annual Compliance Awards and was a finalist in the 2016 Legal Business Client Partner of the Year awards. 

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"Simon Morris is a ‘market-leading authority on financial services issues’, and ‘the gold standard’ for contentious work in the industry."

Legal 500

"Standout partner Simon Morris has strength in both contentious and non-contentious work. Clients say: "He is obviously a heavyweight partner. I take great confidence and comfort from his knowledge. He comes across the regulator quite often and seems very in touch with it all." "

Chambers

"Simon Morris is a ‘market-leading authority on financial services issues’, and ‘the gold standard’ for contentious work in the industry."

Legal 500

"Standout partner Simon Morris has strength in both contentious and non-contentious work. Clients say: "He is obviously a heavyweight partner. I take great confidence and comfort from his knowledge. He comes across the regulator quite often and seems very in touch with it all." "

Chambers

Relevant experience

  • Governance – advising firms on a wide range of governance issues, including the constitution and composition of boards and committees; reviewing governance and preparing reports for submission to the PRA and the FCA; working with firms to enable them to regain the regulator’s confidence in their governance arrangements.  Advising on the practical application of the SMCR regime regarding governance, allocation of responsibilities, conduct rule breaches and regulatory notifications.  
  • Regulatory interaction – helping firms to manage regulatory interactions such as the requirement to appoint a skilled person; preparation for PRA and FCA interviews and for appearing before independent enquiries; managing the regulator’s response to adverse information; assisting firms to respond to regulatory challenge on systems, controls, capital, conduct, perimeter breaches and other requirements.  Also handling contested firm authorisations, changes in control, and refusals to approve individuals as fit and proper.
  • Enforcement investigations – handling over 500 investigations and similar actions commenced by the PRA, the FCA, their predecessors and overseas regulators on conduct, governance and financial crime.  Also acting for regulators, including prosecuting a conduct case for an overseas regulator, and enforcement actions for a major stock exchange  
  • Financial crime – representing firms in UK and overseas insider dealing and market manipulation investigations and financial crime reviews; advising on market conduct queries and on trading positions; conducting investigations on behalf of clients into potential financial crime. 
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Education

  • BA Law, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
  • PhD History, Birkbeck College London
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Expertise

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16/11/2022
Cur­rent Is­sues in Con­ten­tious Fin­an­cial Reg­u­la­tion - Part 2
Apo­lo­gies, but the wrong re­gis­tra­tion link was used in the pre­vi­ous in­vite. If you would like to re­gister for this event, please use the cor­rect link be­low.Some­times things don’t go to plan and when...
Event Webinar
02/11/2022
Cur­rent Is­sues in Con­ten­tious Fin­an­cial Reg­u­la­tion - Part 1
Apo­lo­gies, but the wrong re­gis­tra­tion link was used in the pre­vi­ous in­vite. If you would like to re­gister for this event, please use the cor­rect link be­low.Some­times things don’t go to plan and when...
Event Webinar
16/09/2022
Dir­ect­ors’ re­spons­ib­il­ity for identi­fy­ing in­side in­form­a­tion - Les­sons...
This art­icle con­siders the de­cision of the Fin­an­cial Con­duct Au­thor­ity (FCA) to fine Sir Chris­toph­er Gent the sum of £80,000 for the un­law­ful dis­clos­ure of in­side in­form­a­tion. The art­icle dis­cusses cer­tain...
Law-Now Banking & Finance
22/07/2022
Fin­an­cial Ser­vices & Mar­kets Bill: A new be­gin­ning? UK fin­an­cial ser­vices...
On 20 Ju­ly 2022, the Fin­an­cial Ser­vices and Mar­kets Bill (the Bill) was in­tro­duced in­to Par­lia­ment. The Bill is the largest piece of fin­an­cial ser­vices le­gis­la­tion for over two dec­ades and cov­ers a wide...
Law-Now Insurance
21/06/2022
Fin­an­cial Ser­vices Fu­ture Reg­u­lat­ory Frame­work: A bon­fire of in­vestor pro­tec­tion?
The House of Com­mons Treas­ury Com­mit­tee (TSC) has pub­lished its second re­port on the fu­ture of fin­an­cial ser­vices reg­u­la­tion, con­sid­er­ing the pri­or­it­ies for reg­u­lat­ory change. Its find­ings strike an...
Law-Now Banking & Finance
09/02/2021
FS Break­fast Sem­in­ar: Brexit, Cov­id, Con­naught & Lon­don Cap­it­al - the fu­ture...
In this we­bin­ar, our team will take stock of the cur­rent hur­ricane of reg­u­lat­ory change in­clud­ing: the post-Brexit op­por­tun­it­ies the Gov­ern­ment is seiz­ing to stream­line UK reg­u­la­tion;the PRA’s and...
Event Webinar
16/10/2020
We­bin­ar: Fo­cus­ing on fair­ness - Cul­ture and gov­ernance to de­liv­er fair...
The FCA wants firms to foster healthy cul­tures where con­duct and fair out­comes are at the fore­front of their busi­nesses.  In this we­bin­ar we will look how cul­ture and gov­ernance can sup­port pos­it­ive...
Event Webinar
02/07/2020
FCA Ex­ten­sion of the Seni­or Man­agers & Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Re­gime (SM&CR) im­ple­ment­a­tion...
The dead­line for solo-reg­u­lated firms to have un­der­taken the first as­sess­ment of the fit­ness and pro­pri­ety of their Cer­ti­fied Per­sons has been ex­ten­ded from 9 Decem­ber 2020 to 31 March 2021. To en­sure...
Law-Now Banking & Finance
01/07/2020
FS We­bin­ar: Fo­cus­sing on Fair­ness - FCA pri­or­it­ies for the year ahead
‘Fair­ness’ is set to be­come the reg­u­lat­ory buzzword for 2020 as the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to shed a new light on firms’ busi­ness mod­els. In this, the first of a series of Fin­an­cial Ser­vices We­binars...
Event Webinar
21/04/2020
In­sur­ance 2020: Cul­ture
Cul­ture, once the pre­serve of man­age­ment gurus, is swiftly mov­ing main­stream.   Over the past few years both the PRA and the FCA, as well as the European reg­u­lat­ors, have in­creas­ingly drawn at­ten­tion...
Law-Now Insurance
22/10/2019
FS Break­fast Sem­in­ar: Cur­rent reg­u­lat­ory de­vel­op­ments (Lon­don)
In this sem­in­ar, Si­mon Mor­ris will of­fer an up­date on cur­rent reg­u­lat­ory de­vel­op­ments, look­ing in par­tic­u­lar at:Cur­rent trends in fin­an­cial crime su­per­vi­sion;Vul­ner­ab­il­ity, pri­cing and the new reg­u­lat­ory...
Event Legal
29/03/2019
FS Break­fast Sem­in­ar: Cur­rent reg­u­lat­ory de­vel­op­ments (Ed­in­burgh)
In this sem­in­ar, Si­mon Mor­ris will of­fer an up­date on cur­rent reg­u­lat­ory de­vel­op­ments, look­ing in par­tic­u­lar at:A new fo­cus on op­er­a­tion­al riskThe FCA’s com­pet­i­tion powers in prac­ticeStew­ard­ship as...
Event Legal
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