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The ADGM Board of Directors established the Appeals Panel in accordance with ADGM Financial Services and Markets Regulations 2015 (FSMR) to provide an independent review of a wide range of administrative decisions made by the FSRA. It also has a first instance decision-making function to consider and determine executive decisions referred to it by the FSRA.
The Appeals Panel seeks to secure consistent, transparent and proportionate use of regulatory powers and increase regulatory certainty and the expedient resolution of matters. It is comprised of five legal and regulatory professionals with expertise and experience in commercial litigation, international arbitration, banking and finance, commercial dispute resolution and other areas. The Panel is led by Mr Michael Brindle KC as the President, with Ms Jane Diplock AO as Deputy President.
To preserve its objectivity and impartiality, the Appeals Panel has full independence and authority for determining regulatory appeals and is independent of the ADGM Board of Directors, the FSRA and the ADGM Courts.
Mr Michael Brindle KC
President
Mr Michael Brindle KC has practised at the Bar since 1975. His speciality is commercial/financial law. Having acted for most of the larger financial institutions, he became a favourite choice of counsel for the Financial Services Authority, and was involved in the reform of their procedures in the early 2000s. This has given him considerable insight into financial regulation. This has encompassed not only England and Wales, but also many other jurisdictions, where banks and financial institutions have sought to participate in the London financial markets.
He has been involved in many of the leading cases on financial regulation, as well as mis-selling cases arising out of, preceding and following the 2008-2009 financial crisis. He sits as a deputy High Court judge, and as a commercial arbitrator in England, Singapore and the Gulf.
Ms Jane Diplock AO
Deputy President
Jane Diplock AO is a highly experienced international company director and is considered a global expert on governance, regulation, standard setting, digitisation, sustainability and reporting. She has chaired and sat on boards of public and private companies and not for profit organisations.
Her executive career included senior positions in government, heading up several government departments, in senior roles in investment banking with Westpac Banking Corporation’s merchant and institutional banking arms and in global and local regulation. She chaired the governing board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) for seven years and the New Zealand Securities Commission for nine. She has had wide experience in global and local standard setting and the implementation and enforcement of global standards.
Since her retirement from executive life, she has chosen to serve on the boards of a number of global bodies and companies, including Singapore Exchange Limited, the Public Interest Oversight Board, the International Integrated Reporting Council Board and the Value Reporting Foundation. She sat on advisory boards to SEBI (the Indian securities regulator) and CSRC (the Chinese securities regulator).
Currently her focus is on sustainable finance, climate change reporting, regulation and digitisation, serving on a number of globally focused Boards, Committees and Projects, including as a Director on the Value Reporting Foundation, Director on Singapore Exchange Regulatory Co, a Member of the Advisory Board of Persefoni, Director on the board of the Wellington Zoo Trust and Chair of the Oversight Committee of a project on the digitisation of impact investment funded by Tipping Point and executed by Advisers.
In 2003 she was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) for "service to business and commerce, to public administration, particularly in the areas of education and training, and to the community through a range of social justice, health, educational and cultural organisations.”
Ms Patricia Robertson KC
Member
Patricia Robertson KC was called to the Bar in 1988, took silk in 2006, and practises at Fountain Court Chambers, London. She has a broad commercial practice, focusing in particular on advisory, litigation and mediation work connected with banking and financial services disputes, professional negligence, and the regulation of financial and legal services. She has acted both for and against a wide range of different professional services regulators, as well as having experience of acting as a regulator herself, having served a 6 year term as a member of the Bar Standards Board, responsible for regulating barristers in England & Wales. As Vice Chair of the Bar Standards Board (2013-2015) she led a reform program to modernise the regulatory regime for the Bar.
Patricia was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2016. She is a Master of the Bench, Inner Temple. She sits as an arbitrator.
Mr Andrew Whittaker
Member
Mr Andrew Whittaker is a senior UK lawyer and non-executive director with wide-ranging understanding of the financial services and legal services markets and their regulation. He has significant executive experience of financial regulation and banking, and was involved as a non-executive in leadership of legal services market reform. He is currently an independent non-executive director of ICE Futures Europe, the UK investment exchange and chairs its Risk and Audit committee. He also performs the same roles for ICE Futures Abu Dhabi. He was Group General Counsel to Lloyds Banking Group from 2013 to 2015. Before that he was General Counsel to the Board of the Financial Services Authority from 2000 to 2015, and a member of its Executive Committee from 2002 to 2015. He was a non-executive director of the Legal Services Board from 2008 to 2014.
Included in the Times "Top 100" lawyers for 2008 and 2009, he has spoken and written regularly on financial regulation, and was General Editor of Butterworths Financial Services: Law and Practice (1987-97) and Consultant Editor, Butterworths Financial Regulation Service (1997-2006). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation.
Ms Rachel Eng
Member
Rachel ENG is the Managing Director of Eng and Co. LLC, a Singapore law firm which is part of the network of member firms of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited. She is a corporate lawyer focusing on corporate advisory, corporate M&A, corporate governance, funds and trusts and listings work.
Rachel is a director of the Central Provident Fund Board. She was previously a member of Singapore’s Committee on the Future Economy and also a member of the Corporate Governance Council established by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to revise the Code of Corporate Governance.
Rachel is a Singapore country representative to the ASEAN Business Advisory Council. She is a member of Singapore General Hospital Fund Committee, a committee established under SingHealth Fund. She is also a member of the Council for Board Diversity established by the Singapore government with President Halimah Yacob as its patron and a council member of the Singapore National Employers Federation.
Rachel was awarded Law Firm Managing Partner of the Year at Thomson Reuters’ ALB South East Asia Law Awards 2011 and 2013. Rachel was conferred the prestigious “Woman of the Year 2014” by Her World in October 2014. Rachel was one of the 10 women honoured in November 2015 by The Peak Magazine in its Power List 2015.
Rachel has been recognized as a leading corporate lawyer by numerous independent legal publications, including Asialaw Leading Lawyers, Best Lawyers, IFLR and Who's Who Legal. She was ranked by Asia Business Law Journal as Singapore’s Top 100 lawyers (The A-List) in 2018 and ranked as the top 300 leading female transactional experts globally by IFLR1000’s Women Leaders Guide 2020.
The FSRA may refer an executive decision to the Appeals Panel for determination. In this instance, the Appeals Panel will select a sub-panel of one member to exercise the functions of a first instance decision maker on behalf of the FSRA.
A decision made by the sub-panel may be referred to the wider Appeals Panel for a full merits review. In this case, the sub-panel member will be excluded from the wider Appeals Panel if the decision is referred for a full merits review.
A reference is a proceeding before the Appeals Panel to review a decision of the FSRA. The Appeals Panel conducts a full merits review of any FSRA decision referred to it. It considers any relevant evidence relied on by the FSRA in its original decision and any new relevant evidence that may appear after the FSRA's decision. The Appeals Panel may affirm, vary, or set aside the FSRA's decision. The Appeals Panel can also remit the matter to the FSRA with directions as to how the FSRA should make its decision.
To commence a reference, a person must complete a Reference Notice (Appeals Panel Form 1) and submit it to the Secretariat of the Appeals Panel in accordance with the Appeals Panel Practice and Procedures.
Decisions of the Appeals Panel may be challenged by judicial review. An application for judicial review of a decision of the Appeals Panel may be made to the ADGM Court of First Instance on the grounds that the decision is wrong in law or is in excess of the Appeal Panel's jurisdiction.
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