Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC)

Alison became chair of the RDC in November 2024.

Before joining the RDC she practised as a barrister in commercial law at 4 Pump Court, London for over 30 years.

Alison’s practice included a wide range of commercial law disputes but she specialised in the field of financial services and financial regulatory law providing advisory services and conducting litigation for and against a large number of commercial institutions, regulators and individuals in the UK and overseas.

Alison was appointed as a senior decision maker for the Guernsey Financial Services Commission in 2018. She has also acted as a mediator in a range of commercial disputes for over 10 years and is a bencher of the Middle Temple Inn of Court.

Outside of her legal practice, Alison has also held a number of positions including chair of Clifton College, trustee and director of the National Executive of the CPRE, trustee of the Bath Preservation Trust, councillor for Bath and North East Somerset and chair of the West of England Combined Authority Oversight and Scrutiny Committee.

Alison is also chair of the Payments Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[7].

Tim joined the RDC in January 2016.

Before joining the RDC he was a partner at global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills LLP for more than 28 years, after serving 10 years as an associate and articled clerk.

As a commercial disputes solicitor in the areas of litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, he practised in both London and Hong Kong dealing most recently with complex, high-value disputes arising out of the global financial crisis, often involving regulatory considerations. He was the firm's executive partner, Asia managing partner and latterly head of commercial litigation in London. He was also a member of the firm's governing council for many years.

Tim worked as legal assessor to the London Stock Exchange's Quotations Committee and sat for a total of 5 years as an elected council member of the Law Society of Hong Kong. During his career he has taken a keen interest in legal pro bono work, which has included voluntary work in a Citizens Advice Bureau-linked legal advice centre. He is currently a trustee of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust.

Margaret Obi joined the RDC as a deputy chair in May 2023. She is also deputy chair of the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee.

Margaret is a former partner in a leading criminal defence practice. In 2014 she left private practice to become an independent legal consultant. She is currently a member of The Pensions Regulator’s Determinations Panel and in February 2023 she was appointed as the first commissioner for Service Police Complaints. Margaret also sits as a deputy High Court judge.

Margaret’s other work includes advising lawyers in relation to investigations undertaken by the Serious Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency. She advises international legal teams defending allegations of war crimes in the International Criminal Court and advises on disputes between states in the International Court of Justice. She is an independent legal assessor and legally qualified chair for various statutory bodies. She is also a trustee/director of Appeal, a charity and law practice dedicated to fighting miscarriages of justice and advocating for reform of the criminal justice system.

Margaret is also deputy chair of the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[7].

Edward joined the RDC as deputy chair in May 2023.

Before that he was a partner and consultant in the Disputes practice at Ashurst LLP. In his 48 years at the firm, he filled several roles including head of litigation and a member of the Board. His disputes practice involved acting for major corporate and financial institutions in challenging and complex situations; most recently focussing on regulatory investigations and proceedings involving financial institutions and their employees.

Edward is also a member of the Bank of England's Enforcement Decision Making Committee and, until the end of 2022, served as chair of the City of London Law Society. He has a number of roles for charities.

Edward is also deputy chair of the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[8].

Kevin joined the RDC in 2015.

He has over 35 years of experience in payment systems, cards, treasury, transaction banking and fund management gained in UK and international financial services. He sits as a non-executive or independent member on a number of bodies.

Kevin is currently an independent Board member and Risk Committee member on the RGTS/CHAPS Board at the Bank of England and also chairs the RTGS/CHAPS external facing Strategic Advisory Forum. 

Kevin is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and was with RBS for 35 years, where he was Global Head of Transaction Services until April 2014. He has a strong external profile as an industry expert and speaker on global transaction banking, payments and treasury/funds business and regulatory issues. He has represented RBS and the UK on a number of external bodies. He had direct involvement in the design and development of the UK’s Faster Payments service and was the inaugural chairperson of the UK Faster Payments Scheme.

Kevin is also a member of the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[7].

Tanya joined the RDC in 2019.

Tanya has over 30 years experience in financial services. She worked in corporate finance and as a credit officer, and held senior positions across different areas of the risk spectrum primarily within major banks (JP Morgan and UBS), which gave her extensive risk control, financial markets and corporate governance expertise. She was also responsible for implementing a variety of organisation-wide risk/regulatory change programmes and has been a member nominated pension trustee twice.  

Since moving to a portfolio career in 2011, Tanya has held a range of non-executive director roles, mostly within financial services, including acting as chair of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Quality Assurance Scheme and board positions with Faster Payments Scheme, Standard Life Savings and Societe Generale International.

She is currently non-executive director on the boards of Handelsbanken plc, Standard Life Savings Limited (and its subsidiary Elevate Portfolio Services, which provides the Wrap and Elevate platforms for independent financial advisers) and Border to Coast Pension Partnership (an asset manager set up for pooling by 11 local authority pension funds). She is also the founder of the Scottish based charity Changing the Chemistry, which promotes diversity of thought in the boardroom, for which she was awarded an MBE.

Noël joined the RDC in July 2019.

She is chair of the UK Export Finance agency and serves on the board of the UK Department of International Trade. She is senior independent director of Scotia Bank Europe and OneSavings Bank. She serves as an advisor to the Bank of England on RTGS/CHAPS. 

She served on the boards of Standard Life plc and London Metal Exchange from 2012 to 2018, was chair of GE Capital Bank Europe until April 2017 and served as chair of Sumitomo Mitsui Bank (Europe Middle East and Africa) from 2004 to June 2015. In 2006 she was appointed by the UK Government to the Board of the Tote and served on the board until its privatisation. She has also served on the boards of Alent, Corus, Logica, Impellam Group, RSA Insurance Group, Avocet Mining, Anglo Irish Bank and Dominion Diamond Corporation.
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Noël was appointed by the UK Government as partnership director of London Underground and served in that role from 2003-2008, having previously served on the Board of Transport for London, where she chaired the Audit Committee. From 1998 to 2004, Noël was chief operating officer of Citibank International PLC in London. She was responsible for infrastructure and governance of Europe’s first truly pan European bank, with branches in 18 countries.

Anne joined the RDC in 2019.

Anne is an experienced non-executive director who currently holds positions at the Office of Road and Rail, Elexon. She is the chair of MOSL, the market operator for England’s non-retail water market, having previously chaired Thames Water's Customer Challenge Group. She is a lay member of the General Dental Council and a member of the Enforcement Decision Making Committee of the Bank of England.

In her executive career, she spent more than 20 years in the telecoms sector at BT, leading the regulatory negotiations that led to the creation of Openreach. Anne chairs Volunteering Matters, is vice chair of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and is a trustee of a number of other charities. She also chairs the Governance and Nominations Committee for Diabetes UK.  

Julie joined the RDC in 2019.

Julie is a specialist in regulatory compliance, risk and governance.  She holds the position of chief regulatory officer at Perspective Financial Group Ltd and sits on a number of Perspective’s subsidiary company Boards. Julie spent her early career working as an independent financial adviser (IFA). She later held various senior governance roles at Bradford & Bingley and worked as a Compliance Consultant to IFAs for Paradigm Partners before joining Perspective in 2010.

Julie was elected to the Board of the Association of Professional Financial Advisers (APFA) in 2014, which later merged with the Wealth Management Association (WMA) to form the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association (PIMFA) where she continued to represent mid-sized financial advisory firms until February 2019.

Julie is an associate of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and holds the Diploma in Financial Planning.

Karen joined the RDC in 2017.

Karen is a barrister, with a specialist interest in consumer financial services and consumer protection. She has worked extensively on the implementation of EU standards into UK consumer and pension law, and the development of regulatory regimes for the protection of consumers.

She held a public appointment as deputy pensions ombudsman between 2015-2020.

She was formerly the Pensions Regulator’s lead adviser on strategic legal risk, where she led the development of the Regulator’s compliance and enforcement strategy for auto-enrolment and established its first enforcement team.

At the Office of Fair Trading, she was a consumer protection lawyer advising on credit licensing, statutory codes and enforcement casework with national impacts. At the independent bar, her practice included mortgage, consumer credit, landlord and tenant, debt and crime at all levels of seriousness.

She is the current vice-chair of Brighton and Hove Citizens Advice.

Peter joined the RDC in July 2019.

He has over 35 years’ experience in retail financial services, covering investment management, independent advice and pensions management. 

Peter trained with Sedgwick Group in both Personal Financial Planning and Group Pensions work before joining Scottish Widows Investment Management. As managing director of regional financial adviser Yorkshire Investment Group (YIG) he led a number of successful regional acquisitions before launching UK Wealth Management in 2008, acquiring YIG and then a number of national acquisitions as the group became one of the early sector consolidators.   

Peter left the business following the successful secondary buy-out and in recent years has run his own LLP offering discreet consultancy to businesses and directors in financial services and legal professions.  

He has a range of industry qualifications in pensions and investment management and is an IOD certified company director.

Philip joined the RDC in 2016.

Philip is a competition lawyer with over 30 years’ experience in advising corporates and governments, particularly on fast-moving consumer markets and agency decision-making.

Philip is deputy chair of the Bank of England’s Enforcement Decision Making Committee.  He is also professor of Law and Economics at the College of Europe, Bruges, teaching the core LL.M. competition course and is co-founder and general editor of the European Competition Journal, and the Oxford University Press Competition Law case reporter series.  Philip’s past career includes being a member of the Board of the Office of Fair Trading, an inquiry chair and senior director of Case Decision Groups at the Competition and Markets Authority and a board member of the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities. He chaired the British Institute’s Competition Law Forum, and worked in private practice in London, Toronto and Tokyo, and as a competition official in Ottawa.

Philip is also a member of the FCA’s Competition Decisions Committee[8] and the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[10] and Competition Decisions Committee[12].

Stephen joined the RDC in 2019.

Stephen is an Independent non-executive director and audit committee chair of Gama Aviation Plc. He also chairs the Finance & Performance Committee and sits on the Audit, Workforce and Sustainability Committees of University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust which manages two large acute general hospitals with 9,000 staff and turnover of £600m. Stephen is a member of the Determinations Panel of The Pensions Regulator, acts internationally as an expert witness on auditing, financial reporting and corporate governance matters and is a Governor of Reading Blue Coat School. Previously he sat on the Audit Quality Review Committee of the Financial Reporting Council, and was a trustee and treasurer of New Forest Heritage.

Stephen retired as a senior partner with PwC in 2016 after almost 4 decades’ experience auditing and advising listed companies, their boards and management teams on financial, operational, strategic and governance issues. As lead engagement and global relationship partner he worked internationally with leading FTSE, NYSE, NASDAQ, CAC40, DAX and other Fortune 500 groups. He served in management roles as head of marketing and business development for the South Region, senior partner of PwC's West London office and as UK technology industry leader. From 2001-2011 he was based in PwC's London Top Tier Assurance practice before moving to strengthen the firm’s presence in the Thames Valley where he worked additionally with several major AIM and mid-market companies. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, and holds an MBA with distinction from Warwick Business School.

Sidney joined the RDC in 2019.

He began his legal career in 1982 at global law firm Allen & Overy LLP, where he was a partner for 18 years, after which he spent ten years as a partner and then a consultant at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP (BCLP).

Sidney practised as a commercial litigation solicitor in London and Hong Kong, dealing with a variety of complex disputes and financial investigations.

Sidney was head of the Regulatory Investigations Group at Allen & Overy and then led the Financial Services practice at BCLP.  His practice focused on financial services regulatory disputes, acting for both firms and individuals.

He is a member of the Financial Services Lawyers Association’s Advisory Board and a Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution accredited mediator. 

He has volunteered as a mentor for the Social Mobility Foundation and more recently chaired an educational fundraising charity.

Caroline joined the RDC in 2015.

She is a chartered accountant with 25 years’ experience in insurance and investment management gained during her executive career in finance and audit.

Caroline has previously been UK chief financial officer for RSA. Prior to this, she held a number of senior finance roles at Aviva after spending the first 12 years of her career at KPMG, where she qualified as a chartered accountant in 1984. In June 2015, Caroline retired from her role as group chief internal auditor at RSA Group to develop her non-executive portfolio.

Caroline is a member of the Supervisory Board of life and investment group Aegon NV and chairs the Audit Committee. She is also Audit Committee chair at general insurers, Tesco Underwriting Limited and Brit Syndicates Limited and investment company, Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust plc.

Caroline is also a member of the Payment Systems Regulator’s Enforcement Decisions Committee[13].