Top international finance conference comes to town

Monday 14 July 2014

Jersey is hosting a high-level conference this week organised jointly by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

The purpose is to encourage international co-operation between securities authorities in order to protect investors. The Commission, which has successfully negotiated for the SEC to stage the conference in the Island, is to host and sponsor the event, which takes place at the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel. It is believed to be the first time the SEC has staged a conference in one of the British Crown Dependencies.

Starting on Tuesday, the four-day programme begins with a one day seminar designed to promote communication between the US SEC staff and industry participants in the Channel Islands on compliance issues of relevance to investment advisers and collective investment funds. 

The longer three day conference, ‘Effective Oversight of Capital Markets: Compliance, Examinations, Investigations and Prosecutions of Securities Fraud’, from the 16 – 18 July, is designed for regulators and law enforcement officers only and will be attended by senior figures from regulatory authorities around the world and officials who investigate and prosecute financial crimes such as insider trading, Ponzi schemes, money laundering, and securities fraud.

John Harris, Director General of JFSC, will welcome participants to the seminar and provide the opening address.  He said that it was an excellent opportunity for Jersey to have attracted such a high level American regulatory conference to Jersey.  He added:

“Not only do we have some of the senior figures from the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Island to meet with our own government representatives, regulators and industry leaders, but there will also be a range of regulators and law enforcement officers from around the world who regularly attend these important, informative and thought provoking SEC conferences.

I would encourage those working at a senior compliance industry level locally to consider attending the one day outreach event, especially if their firm is doing, or is likely to do business in the United States or with US firms.  We expect the interest to be international with many delegates from other jurisdictions making the trip to attend.”