Money Covered The Week That Was - 18 September 2026

Welcome to The Week That Was, a round-up of key events in the financial services sector over the last seven days.

The fifth episode of Season 4 of our podcast, Money Covered – The Month That Was, where the team looks at the Financial Conduct Authority's Vehicle Finance Redress Scheme Consultation, is now available.

To listen to this and all previous episodes, please click here.

Headline Development

Court of Appeal rules that regulatory redress under DISP does not establish liability for contribution under the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978

The Court of Appeal (COA) has considered the scope of a contractual indemnity arising from the historic mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), along with the question of whether redress paid under DISP amounts to a 'liability' for the purposes of the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978 ("the Act"). The dispute in AXA France IARD S.A. and another v Santander Cards UK Ltd and another [2026] EWCA Civ 1185 concerned an agency agreement entered into between the predecessors of the AXA and Santander entities. AXA sought to recover approximately £677m from Santander under an indemnity clause, relating to liabilities arising from PPI mis-selling.

The COA allowed Santander's appeal, overturning the High Court's determination that the indemnity applied to historic sales. The COA emphasised that the agency agreement had to be construed as a whole. Its provisions, including the duties imposed on Santander and the "entire agreement" clause, were predominantly prospective and referred to activities from the agreement's effective date onwards. The fact that the agreement was intended to provide continuity in the parties' relationship, and that an indemnity was commercially common in agency arrangements, did not justify extending a newly created indemnity to liabilities arising from conduct occurring decades earlier. The COA therefore concluded that the indemnity did not apply to policies sold before the agency agreement was entered into.

The COA also dismissed AXA's cross-appeal concerning contribution under Act. Broadly, the COA found that redress payments were not based on liabilities for the purposes of section 1(6) of the 1978 Act, as they were not liabilities that had been or could have been established in an action brought against a person in England and Wales by or on behalf of the person who suffered the damage. The obligation to make the redress payments arose from an obligation to the regulator under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), as the legislation that established the Financial Ombudsman Scheme (FOS), and from the requirements of DISP itself. It therefore followed that redress paid by a firm to satisfy regulatory obligations under DISP falls outside of the Act and cannot of itself form the basis of a claim in contribution.

To read the full judgment, please click here.

Regulatory developments for FCA regulated entities

FCA publishes guidance to firms on crypto regulation

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published new guidance intended to help cryptoasset firms assess how the legislation underpinning the UK’s future cryptoasset regulatory regime will apply to their business, including which activities are likely to require FCA authorisation. The new FCA guidance is aimed at providing greater clarity on how the future regime applies in practice and how firms should identify in-scope activities requiring authorisation. In-scope activities addressed in the guidance include (1) issuing qualifying stablecoins, (2) operating cryptoasset trading platforms, (3) dealing in and arranging deals in cryptoassets, (4) safeguarding cryptoassets, and (5) arranging cryptoasset staking.

The FCA is supporting firms via pre-application discussions and webinars, and intends to consult in October on targeted updates to the guidance to reflect recent targeted legislative changes made by the government. These changes do not affect most firms, who can prepare for authorisation using the existing guidance.

To read the updated guidance, please click here.

With thanks to this week's contributors: Lauren Butler, Haiying Li, Daniel Parkin, Sourav Shinagare, Damien O'Malley and Dorian Nunzek.