Clifford Chance

From equivalence to recognition: changing UK approaches to non-UK regulatory regimes

14 May 2025

Recent UK legislation has adopted a new approach to designating countries and territories outside the UK for more favourable treatment under domestic regulatory regimes. The new approach allows HM Treasury to designate overseas jurisdictions where this is compatible with high-level regulatory objectives, including the objective of facilitating UK competitiveness and economic growth, without requiring the Treasury to determine whether the law and practice in the overseas jurisdiction is equivalent to that in the UK.

This briefing describes the new approach and compares it with existing equivalence-based regimes.

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