Two City watchdog executives who were criticised on Wednesday over the disclosure of a probe into the insurance industry are expected to give evidence on the crisis to a powerful panel of MPs.
Sky News understands that Clive Adamson, the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) director of supervision, and Zitah McMillan, its communications chief, are likely to appear before the Treasury Select Committee before Christmas.
A further session with Martin Wheatley, the FCA's chief executive, is expected to be held in the new year.
Mr Adamson and Ms McMillan are leaving their FCA roles in the coming weeks, ostensibly as part of a restructuring which the regulator has insisted is unconnected to a report published on Wednesday by Simon Davis, a leading City lawyer.
Mr Davis's report said the FCA's approach to briefing a national newspaper about a proposed review of an area of the pensions market was "high risk, poorly supervised and inadequately controlled.
When it went wrong, the FCA's reaction was seriously inadequate and fell short of the standards expected of those it regulates."
Mr Adamson, Mr Wheatley and Ms McMillan were all criticised in Mr Davis's report, alongside David Lawton, the FCA director of markets.
Their ponderous response to the appearance of the newspaper story about their probe in March meant that panicked selling by investors in insurance companies such as Aviva and Phoenix went on for more than six hours the following morning.
All four forfeited their bonuses for last year as a result, while any discretionary payouts for the current year are also under threat because of the £3.8m cost of the inquiry, Sky News has learnt.
In a statement on Wednesday, Andrew Tyrie, the TSC chair, said the report's findings illustrated a regulator "pursuing the wrong strategy in the wrong way".
He accused the FCA of falling "well below the standards it requires of the firms it regulates" and said further investigation was required.
"The Committee will, among many other things, examine whether these errors were a one-off or whether they reveal something amiss, perhaps seriously amiss, with the standards and culture of the FCA. We will also examine remedies, both those proposed or already announced, and others."
George Osborne, the Chancellor, said he was confident that the FCA would learn the lessons of Mr Davis's report.
The FCA declined to comment.
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