Please supply lists of general insurance companies involved in the practice known as "price walking" or "loyalty penalty" during the period 2015 to 2021 inclusive
Dear The Financial Conduct Authority,
Please supply lists of general insurance companies regulated by you which were involved in the practice known as "price walking" or "loyalty penalty" during the period 2015 to 2021 inclusive. Loyalty penalty is mentioned in the FCA's Press Release of 28 May 2021: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releas....
Yours faithfully
Patrick Lee
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Dear The Financial Conduct Authority,
By law, you should normally have responded promptly and by 19 October 2021. When will you respond please?
Yours faithfully,
Patrick Lee
Thank you for e-mailing the Financial Conduct Authority's Information
Disclosure Team.
This is an automatic acknowledgement to tell you that we have received
your email safely.
Please do not reply to this email.
We will be in touch in due course.
This communication and any attachments may contain personal information.
For more information about how and why we use personal information and who
to contact with any queries about this, please see our privacy notices:
FCA Privacy Notice (https://www.fca.org.uk/data-protection) and PSR
Privacy Notice
(https://www.psr.org.uk/cookies-privacy-a...).
This communication and any attachments contain information which is
confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. It is for intended
recipients only. If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy,
distribute, publish, rely on or otherwise use it without our consent. Some
of our communications may contain confidential information which it could
be a criminal offence for you to disclose or use without authority. If you
have received this email in error please notify [email address]
immediately and delete the email from your computer. Further information
on the classification and handling of FCA information can be found on the
FCA website
(http://www.fca.org.uk/site-info/legal/fc...).
The FCA (or, if this email originates from the Payment Systems Regulator
Limited, the FCA on behalf of the Payment Systems Regulator Limited / the
Payment Systems Regulator Limited) reserves the right to monitor all email
communications for compliance with legal, regulatory and professional
standards.
This email is not intended to nor should it be taken to create any legal
relations or contractual relationships. This email has originated from the
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or the Payment Systems Regulator
Limited.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is registered as a limited company
in England and Wales No. 1920623. Registered office: 12 Endeavour Square,
Stratford, London, E20 1JN, United Kingdom
The Payment Systems Regulator Limited is registered as a limited company
in England and Wales No. 8970864. Registered office: 12 Endeavour Square,
Stratford, London, E20 1JN, United Kingdom
Switchboard 020 7066 1000
Web Site http://www.fca.org.uk (FCA); http://www.psr.org.uk (the Payment
Systems Regulator Limited)
Our ref: FOI8649
Dear Mr Lee
Freedom of Information: Right to know request
Thank you for your email of 21 September 2021, in which you asked for:
‘lists of general insurance companies regulated by you which were involved in the practice known as "price walking" or "loyalty penalty" during the period 2015 to 2021 inclusive. Loyalty penalty is mentioned in the FCA's Press Release of 28 May 2021: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releas...
We have processed your email as a request for information under the provision of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), and out response is below. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your request.
Our decision on your request
We hold information relevant to your request, but we are exempted from disclosing it to you as the following FOIA exemptions apply:
Section 43 (Prejudice to commercial interests)
Section 44 (Prohibition on disclosure)
In terms of the application of the qualified exemption in section 43 of FOIA, we are satisfied that the public interest in favour of disclosure is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption.
For more information on why these exemptions apply, please see Annex A.
Your right to complain under the FOI Act
If you are dissatisfied with this response, you have the right to request an internal review. To do so, please contact us within 40 working days of the date of this response at [email address].
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you also have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner by phone or on their website at:
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely
Information Disclosure Team
Annex A
• Section 43 (Commercial Interests)
This section of FOIA states that we are exempt from providing this information if disclosing it would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person, including the public authority that holds the information.
As this exemption is subject to the public interest test, we have considered relevant factors in favour, and against, disclosing information as required by FOIA.
For disclosure:
• Disclosing the information might reassure the public about the effectiveness of the FCA’s regulatory approach and demonstrate how we respond to supervisory matters in the sector we regulate.
• Disclosure could also give consumers information to help them in making decisions about their dealings or potential dealings with firms and individuals that are, or may be, operating in the financial services industry.
Against disclosure:
• Disclosure would be likely to lead to widespread speculation affecting the firms’ brand and reputation in the market in which they operate, without due process having been followed – i.e. without any formal public announcement and without the relevant markets and/or entities having had the opportunity to comment.
• It is strongly in the public interest that the FCA is able to have open and candid exchanges of information with the firms it regulates, regardless of the commercial sensitivity of the information. Disclosing the information could lead to firms being less willing to cooperate with us on similar work.
On this occasion, and for these reasons, we have concluded that the balance of the public interest is in favour of not disclosing the information.
• Section 44 (Prohibitions on Disclosure)
Section 44(1)(a) of FOIA states that information is absolutely exempt from disclosure if this is prohibited by law. Section 348 of FSMA restricts the FCA from disclosing ‘confidential information’ it has received in the course of carrying out its public function. FSMA allows exceptions to this in a few specific circumstances, but none of these apply to this request.
Confidential information here is defined as non-public and non-anonymised information involving a person’s business or other affairs, which the FCA received in the course of carrying out its public function.
The information you requested is based on firm specific data that is considered confidential information under this provision. If we disclosed this information, without the providers’ consent or the consent of the persons the information is about, we would be in breach of section 348 of FSMA. This would be a criminal offence.
In many requests for information under FOIA we have to judge different factors to decide whether disclosing the requested information would be in the public interest or not. For this request, we have an ‘absolute’ exemption against supplying the information, and so we do not need to make this kind of judgement.
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