Commentary Referral fees Section 59: Regulators and regulated persons
332.Section 59 lists both the “regulators” who are required to monitor and enforce the prohibition on the payment and receipt of referral fees in respect of personal injury claims (namely the FSA, the Claims Management Regulator (CMR), the General Council of the Bar and the Law Society or any other regulatory body specified in regulations by the Lord Chancellor) and the “regulated persons” who are subject to the prohibition (namely CMCs, barristers and solicitors, and insurers (see the note to section 58 above) and any person specified by the Lord Chancellor).
333.In addition, in respect of any other type of claim or the provision of legal services to which the prohibition might be extended by regulations under section 56(4)(c), section 59, at subsection (2), lists those regulators who could be required to monitor and enforce the prohibition. Again the relevant regulators include both the FSA and the CMR, but subsection (2) also recognises that, in extending the prohibition, other providers of legal services, who are required to be regulated by other regulatory bodies, may be brought within the prohibition. The subsection has been drafted to ensure that all potential regulated persons and regulators, who are, in fact, identified in Part 3 of the Legal Services Act 2007(15), can be made subject to the provisions in sections 56 and 57 should the need arise. Further, subsection (2) ensures that Alternative Business Structures (see Part 5 of that Act) can also be specified, by the Lord Chancellor, as regulated persons and be made subject to the prohibition as and when it becomes necessary to do so.