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Sara Evans

Knowledge Director
Sara Evans is the Knowledge Director for Clifford Chance’s Financial Regulation Group, London. Email: sara.evans@cliffordchance.com

Articles by author

A step-up in regulatory support for UK fund tokenisation

The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) October 2025 consultation (CP25/28), Progressing Fund Tokenisation, forms part of a broader push to harness digital innovation in financial services, in line with the UK government’s Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy (July 2025) and post-Brexit regulatory reforms. In this In Practice article we unpick some of the benefits and challenges of the FCA’s latest pro-innovation proposals.

10 JAN 2026

Paying for investment research: welcome rule relaxations for EU and UK firms

As part of wider moves to enhance overall competitiveness, the EU and the UK are both making changes to legislation and regulation to boost their jurisdiction’s attractiveness for listing and capital-raising. This includes proposals to loosen the existing research unbundling rules in an effort to increase the amount and quality of available research on companies, along with other measures to ensure visibility of that research so that potential investors have access to a wider range of investment opportunities. The research-related proposals aim ultimately to improve liquidity and growth prospects for small and medium sized (SME) companies.

13 JAN 2025

Can the buyside rely on ESG ratings and data without regulatory risk?

New regulatory requirements for UK asset managers will cause a rethink as to the extent to which they can continue to source and place reliance on third-party ESG data and ratings products without rigorous assessment. Expected improvements in corporate disclosures and the future regulation of ratings providers should provide some comfort.

24 OCT 2024

Enhancing trust in ESG ratings: welcome moves to fix the ecosystem

In this article, we consider the encouraging progress being made in the introduction of voluntary and mandatory solutions to address identified shortcomings and promote greater consistency, reliability and trust in the market for ESG ratings.

30 APR 2024