ABSTRACT
The recommendations made by Professor Gower were, in essence, accepted106 and the Conservative government published the Financial Services Bill in December 1985. Although it was the subject of intensive lobbying by ‘interested’ parties,107 the Bill emerged largely intact and led to the Financial Services Act 1986 which received the Royal Assent on 7 November 1986. The so-called ‘Big Bang’, when, generally speaking, minimum commissions on transactions by Stock Exchange member firms were abolished and the single capacity dealing system108 was abandoned, had taken place on 27 October 1986.
