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’FSA fines JP Morgan record £33.2m
On Thursday, Britain’s Financial Services Authority whacked JP Morgan for failing to segregate client money during the merger with Chase — resulting in what regulators trumpeted as the FSA’s ‘largest ever’ fine at £33.32m.
Tearing flesh off the FSA’s bones
Typical. You launch a regulatory reign of terror so wide-ranging, so baldly inquisitorial, that it would make Robespierre himself blush, and what do you get?
Oblivion.
As the Guardian reports, Britain’s new chancellor George Osborne will probably abolish the FSA after all. Starting with his Mansion House address on 16 June:
Meddling Mandy lives on
The UK Takeover Panel finally published its proposed changes to the Takeover Code on Tuesday — and perhaps suitably for the post-Kraft era, they’re rather stringent.
Lord Mandelson, the former Business Secretary who inspired them,
Market upheaval should not be the new black, SEC says
Volatility might be the new black, but regulators are none too impressed with market upheaval of the May 6 flash crash persuasion.
In a speech on May 24, SEC commissioner Luis Aguilar deplored “the perils of fragmented regulation”
The dangers of politicising regulation [UPDATED]
Former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, on more than one occasion, deplored what he called the stigmatisation of the Tarp.
As the FT reported in May, Paulson told a hearing held by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that the Tarp should have helped some 2,000-3,000 banks:
France fights back on BaFin ban
Germany’s midnight move to ban naked shorting hasn’t quite led to an outbreak of European unity, it’s safe to say — with France lining up to attack first.
As Reuters reports, French economy minister Christine Lagarde is none too happy:
Regulators decline to blame terrorists, fat fingers or hackers for ‘flash crash’
The joint SEC-CFTC taskforce commissioned by the freshly-minted ‘advisory committee on emerging regulatory issues’ on Tuesday released a 151-page report of its preliminary findings regarding the ‘flash crash’ of May 6 2010.
Die Leerverkäufer sind kaputt (updated)
As of midnight on Tuesday, the German breed of short-seller (Leerverkäufer) is set to become a rare species, according to Dow Jones:
Germany will ban so-called naked short-selling from midnight, a lawmaker with the ruling Christian Democratic Union told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
Because one panel on the flash crash wasn’t enough…
SEC chair Mary Schapiro’s testimony to the congressional hearing convened on the flash crash is less than 24 hours old, but already there’s talk of hosting another talking shop on the matter.
Politico reported on Wednesday that the first item on the agenda of the freshly-announced joint SEC-CFTC committee on “emerging regulatory issues”
FDIC considers living wills, safe harbours
Two important developments in FDIC world on Tuesday.
First, the failed-bank overlord formally proposed a new rule that would require the largest US banks to prepare ‘how-to’ guides for regulators who might need to dismantle them further down the line.
SEC cracks down on ‘illicit’ short selling
This is a first:
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two Boca Raton, Fla., residents for engaging in illegal short selling of securities in advance of participating in numerous secondary offerings to make illicit profits.
Nasdaq, NYSE testimony on the flash crash
Talk about insta-outrage: less than one week after last Thursday’s ‘flash crash’, US lawmakers have organised a hearing on the roots of that sudden, short-lived stock market plunge.
The House Financial Committee on Financial Services,
Oh, those evil, speculative… European officials
FT Alphaville continues to be amazed at the hypocrisy of politicians and officials around the world, particularly as regards their attacks on so-called “wolfpacks” of speculators.
The most recent and
SEC/CFTC: ‘Yes, yes, we’re on the case…’
Joint statement out of US regulators on Friday regarding Thursday’s Flash Crash. Operative pars:
…We are devoting significant resources and expertise to this effort.
As we determine the cause and contributing factors,
Everyone should have expected the French inquisition
Arrêtez-vous, spéculateurs!
Taking a page from the playbook of their counterparts in Spain and Germany, France’s financial regulators say they intend to use any means necessary to crack down on evil,
Insta-outrage, politicians and the flash crash edition
As the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell off a cliff on Thursday, FT Alphaville wondered: how would US politicians react?
The answer was not long in coming. Within 20 minutes of the close on Wall Street,
US lawmakers free to continue their short selling, speculative ways
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that “some members of Congress made risky bets with their own money that US stocks or bonds would fall during the financial crisis”.
On Wednesday, the newspaper published a follow-up,
JPM wishes the adults were in charge of financial reform [UPDATED]
FT Alphaville has only one thing to say about the following note from JP Morgan economist James Glassman: ouch.
Below are selected highlights from the note, which Glassman sent out to clients on Monday:
Merkel’s calls for ‘orderly insolvencies’ threaten more disorder
There’s nothing quite like a crisis to expose the underlying cracks and fissures in both political systems and regulatory frameworks.
According to Bloomberg reports, Germany’s coalition government,
‘Big bankers stared at one another in anger and astonishment’
From the archives of Time magazine, a worthwhile read on how US bankers reacted to the “monstrous system of guaranteeing bank desposits” – aka, financial regulation, 1933 style:
Through the great banking houses of Manhattan last week ran wild-eyed alarm.
Counting the cost of the IMF’s bank taxes
If the IMF really does want two big new levies on banks, we’d better run the numbers. The snap conclusion of most bank analysts is that the International Monetary Fund’s proposal for some shiny new financial stability taxes could be quite a large headache for the sector.
Schapiro defends regulators. Again.
Mary Schapiro must be getting a bit bored of having to mount lengthy defences of the regulatory bodies she has headed.
Under her tenure, for instance, FINRA failed entirely to investigate numerous tips that Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff might not have been on their best behaviour.
Friends of the bankers (not)
Among the scores of responses to the Basel Committee’s call for comments its proposals to strengthen the resilience of the banking sector, one stands out – a submission by Friends of the Earth Europe.
And why shouldn’t they have a (left-field) view on the financial system?
Banks and other financial institutions play a crucial role in allocating financial resources in our present,
[The Stanford Series] Strategies to cope with the SEC
There’s something else that emerged from the SEC on Friday — something that was coincidentally largely lost in the Goldman-CDO commotion.
It’s a report by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General,
[Abacus] The analysts react
The SEC’s complaint against Goldman Sachs, alleging the bank misled investors on a 2007 subprime synthetic CDO deal, caused a 12 per cent drop in the company’s share price on Friday.
So, has the bank’s
The derivatives ding-dong waiting in the Dodd bill
Looks like the flagship of US financial reform won’t have plain sailing after all.
Tuesday brought an odd bit of shadow-boxing over where to park derivatives trading in the post-Lehman age. Something to watch,
Britain’s Labour party banks on, er, bank regulation
Labour — they’re the red ones, we think — published their manifesto to remain as the UK’s governing party on Monday, ahead of elections in May.
And surprise, surprise, there’s a bit of bank bashing.