News
Coordination is Key, Says RMA of FSB Repo and Sec Lending Proposals
The Risk Management Association’s Committee on Securities Lending has filed a 40-page response to the Financial Stability Board’s recent whitepaper on shadow banking, focusing on its recommendations regarding securities lending and repo. The January 14, 2013 comment letter represents the views of the RMA and major participants in the agency securities lending markets like BNY Mellon, BlackRock, Citigroup, Northern Trust, State Street, and others.
Is There Such a Thing as “Too Big to Succeed?”
Sifting the rubble left by the financial crisis has turned up some revealing clues about the causes of the catastrophe. At the same time, this forensic examination has given us an opportunity to do some fundamental thinking about to what extent sheer size of the financial industry contributes to the growth and success of economies, or whether size does more harm than good.
Is It Time to Rethink the Nature and Management of Financial Risks?
For the most part, regulators and policy makers around the globe have “bought in” to the global regulatory reform agenda brought about by the financial crisis. But, there are differences of opinion on whether the reforms that are underway are up to the task of enhancing the resilience and robustness of the global financial system.
Money Market Funds and Repo Remain Vulnerabilities to the System
Treasury Secretary J. Lew still sees money market funds and tri-party repo as unfinished business in the nation’s quest to control risks to financial stability. In May 21, 2013 testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Lew delivered the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) annual report to Congress.
What Good Are Regulations if We Don’t Fund The Regulators?
Today Treasury Secretary Jack Lew delivered a broad policy address to an audience at the Pew Charitable Trust. For the most part, Lew spoke about progress the Treasury and Administration have made thus far ending too-big-to-fail and reigning in many of the perceived excesses of Wall Street firms. The truly interesting part of Lew’s address, however, was when he took Congress for to task for passing Dodd-Frank but then failing to properly fund the agencies and departments charged with enforcing the law. Absent real funding, he said, “the best rules will fall short without effective supervision and enforcement.”
US Cross-Border Swaps Regs Draw International Criticism
Newly proposed cross-border regulations issued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission have made waves across the globe, with nine overseas finance officials urging US Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to limit the cross-border reach of Dodd-Frank Act swaps rules. In an April 18, letter, finance officials from Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, and Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, said that new US swaps regulations are fragmenting the $639 trillion global market.
How Do You Regulate Locally on a Global Scale?
Over the past few decades, US and other financial regulators have had to think more and more about their regulations not just from a domestic standpoint, but from a global perspective as well. One prime example is the US Securities and Exchange Commission, whose regulatory mandate has been broadened by the Dodd-Frank Act to include regulation of certain kinds of over the counter (OTC) derivatives.
The Truth About Securities Class Action Lawsuits is in the Numbers
Stanford law professor Michael Klausner, and his colleagues Jason Hegland and Matthew Goforth, have published an update to their 2011 studies reporting data on the timing of dismissals and settlements in securities class actions. In this latest update published in the April 2012 PLUS Journal, the authors address the factors that affect the timing of securities class action lawsuit dismissals and that affect the timing and size of securities suit settlements.
Klausner, Hegland, and Goforth’s analysis uses statistics derived from all securities class actions filed between 2006 and 2010, 82% of which have been resolved one way or another, and 18% are still open. The sample size consisted of 653 cases, of which 253 have settled, 206 were dismissed with prejudice (preventing their refiling), 74 were voluntarily dropped by the plaintiffs, and 119 are ongoing.
With Power Comes Responsibility. Institutional Investors’ Role In Corporate Governance.
Over the past sixty years, as more and more people in the US have begun to participate in the capital markets through retirement plans, mutual funds, ETFs and other pooled investment vehicles, institutional investors have grown from bit players in the markets, owning about 5% of US equities prior to 1945, to being major players today, owning greater than 67% of US equities. This growth in the proportion of assets managed by institutional investors has also been accompanied by a dramatic growth over the same period in the market capitalization of US listed companies.
Fed Departs from Traditional Approach to Foreign Banks in the US
On December 14, 2012, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) issued for public comment a rule proposal that, if adopted, could drastically alter the structure and operations of foreign banking organizations (FBOs) in the U.S. The Fed’s proposal drastically limits the flexibility FBOs have historically had in structuring their U.S. banking and financial operations.