Ms Seána Cunningham:

If you think about the duty of responsibility for senior executive functions, they are responsible for an area and for ensuring that the firm has not committed a prescribed contravention. We are not losing entirely the idea that a firm has committed a prescribed contravention and an individual can be sanctioned, now that we know who was responsible for oversight of that. However, looking at the conduct standards themselves, this is where we see the directly enforceable obligations on individuals that are not necessarily tied to the firm having committed a contravention. It is about having a suite of options available in order to appropriately address the problem that you find yourself dealing with. The common conduct standards and the additional conduct standards for those in senior roles are a very significant enhancement in that they are common and additional conduct standards that people must abide by that are directly imposed on them and enforceable against them. The concept of participating in firm contravention remains, and is still important. However, I think part of the challenge, and what one finds sometimes under the current framework, is that the contravention committed by the firm does not necessarily equate with the conduct of the individual. This gives us a great deal more optionality.