Mr Brown is as much despised as admired among IMF staffers. As a long-serving chairman of the fund’s policy committee, his reputation was of a bullying, autocratic style, intolerant of criticism and unsympathetic to rival points of view.

Standard added that ‘too often’ companies looking to float tried to ‘cobble their boards together at the eleventh hour’.

It added shares in such firms deserve to be marked down by investors for their conduct. Glencore later put out a statement saying Simon Murray – an adventurer who fought with the French Foreign Legion – will take the chair.

Some investors have long complained that banks provide only cursory, non-standard data that makes it all but impossible to compare their relative risk.

“In recent years there has been a shift into more market opacity and a reduction in investor confidence. We are trying to redress that balance,” said Mr Sants

By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt, Quentin Peel in Berlin and Kerin Hope in Athens

Published: May 18 2011 20:39 | Last updated: May 18 2011 23:10

The European Central Bank has criticised proposals for a possible restructuring of Greek sovereign debts, laying bare a behind-the-scenes row between ECB technocrats and European Union politicians over Greece’s debt crisis.

The ECB officials warned that any move to delay repayments would be a dangerous distraction from Athens’ economic and fiscal reform plans.

This month Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, walked out of a meeting hosted by Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister. According to people familiar with events at the meeting, Mr Trichet was angry at talk of a so-called “soft” restructuring that could involve an extension of Greek debt maturities.