FINANCIAL CRISIS & ECONOMY TAXstatic.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20110826/GRB26082011.pdf · 8/26/2011 · Several EU regulators extended short-selling bans despite protests

AUGUST 26, 2011

Several EU regulators extended short-selling bans despite protests they have failed to quell continuing uncertainty in financial markets. The UK's FSA sent a father-and-sons boiler room operation to prison for a total of 19 years. Banks will be asked to report data on their derivatives trades from the end of next year, and Warren Buffett plowed 5 billion into Bank of America, bolstering its capital levels at a critical time in the same way he helped prop up Goldman Sachs and General Electric during the financial crisis.

QUOTES

TOP STORIES Four EU states extend short-selling ban .......................................................................... 5 Father, two sons jailed in UK boiler room scam .............................................................. 5 Regulators to require minimum derivatives data ............................................................. 5 Warren Buffett to invest $5 billion in Bank of America .................................................... 6

FINANCIAL SERVICES

REGULATORY REFORM

Sweden could regulate high-frequency trade .................................................................. 7 Swiss government seeks tax law change for CoCos ....................................................... 7 Swiss regulator moves on Italy bank units....................................................................... 7 Admiral shares slump on referral fees concerns ............................................................. 8 Lloyds aims to remove sales obstacle -report ................................................................. 8

ENFORCEMENT

Vanished Moody's analyst told to pay SEC $34.6 million ................................................ 8 Chicago hedge fund manager pleads guilty to fraud ....................................................... 9 U.S. seeks 6-7-year prison term for former trader ............................................................ 9 Schwab sues 11 major banks for manipulating Libor .................................................... 10 Deutsche Bank denies charges against Korean unit ..................................................... 10 JPMorgan to pay $88.3 million in foreign funds cases .................................................. 10 FDIC has to face $10 billion WaMu-related lawsuit ........................................................ 11 Lawyer Goldfarb gets 3 years prison in insider case ..................................................... 11 Broker ordered to repay Morgan Stanley Smith $1.1 million ......................................... 11 Wilbur Ross company sues over mortgage documents ................................................ 12 Under fire, New York attorney general wins plaudits in mortgage probe ..................... 12 Primary Global CEO tied to insider case-filing ............................................................... 12 Lawsuit vs Deutsche Bank can proceed......................................................................... 13

SUPERVISION

Mortgage probe split puts US banks in tactical bind ..................................................... 13 ENRC founder edges closer to active role ..................................................................... 14 Regulators have the ideal tool to boost banks ............................................................... 14 Nigeria anti-graft agency fails to deliver-Rights Watch ................................................. 14 FDIC comfortable with U.S. bank capital levels .............................................................. 15 PMI units forced to shut shop ......................................................................................... 15 Asia finance hiring muscles through tough climate ...................................................... 15 China's bank rules promise safety, not stability ............................................................ 16

ACCOUNTING & FINANCIAL STANDARDS

Colonial Bank owner files suit against auditors ............................................................. 16

Pressure on Zungui mounts after auditor's red flag ...................................................... 17

DERIVATIVES

Swaps body asked to rule on Irish Life........................................................................... 17

EXCHANGES & TRADING PRACTICES

Oman regulator sees merit in broker mergers ............................................................... 18 Nasdaq asks Sinotech for info on shortseller's charges ............................................... 18

FUNDS MANAGEMENT

Hedge funds brace for more short-selling bans ............................................................. 18

FINANCIAL CRISIS & ECONOMY

Eurozone bank doubts worse for lack of deposits......................................................... 19 German government disagrees with minister on collateral ........................................... 19 Brazil banks unlikely to see credit squeeze ................................................................... 20

TAX

Switzerland, UK agree deal on untaxed accounts .......................................................... 20 Critics say new law makes banks US tax agents ........................................................... 20 Showdown ahead on U.S. overseas profit tax holiday ................................................... 21 Switzerland criticises U.S. demands in tax matters ....................................................... 21 ICAP chief says could quit EU over transaction tax ...................................................... 22

CURRENCY

HKMA sees China offshore yuan FDI launched in 2011 ................................................. 22

TRADE & CROSS BORDER

India wants to ease foreign investment in infrastructure finance bonds ...................... 22

COMMODITIES & ENERGY

Optiver sets aside $19 million for CFTC oil probe.......................................................... 23 CFTC has power, data to tackle speculators, says Sanders ......................................... 23 CFTC names New York lawyer to derivatives division ................................................... 23

ISLAMIC FINANCE

Indonesia central bank plans to review ownership in sharia banks.............................. 24

"We will be as tough on the richest who evade tax as on those who cheat on benefits. The days when it was easy to stash the profits of tax evasion in Switzerland are over."

UK Finance minister George Osborne

"If high-frequency trades strengthen that sort of movement I do not exclude that there could be some sort of regulation at Swedish or EU level."

Swedish Finance Markets Minister Peter Norman

"I sincerely hope that the public release of this oil trading information will spur the CFTC to eliminate excessive speculation as required by the statute so that prices accurately reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand."

Senator Bernie Sanders in a letter to Gary Gensler, CFTC chairman

"This outcome reflects not only our continuing close and productive working relationship with other UK bodies but also shows the FSA working with European authorities ... to go the extra miles to ensure perpetrators of these crimes can be brought to justice."

Tracey McDermott, the FSA's acting director of enforcement, after securing a total of 19 years' imprisonment in boiler room scam

"We do not accept American attempts to tell Switzerland which legal procedures it should use to transfer data. These are procedures that are either too time-consuming or not even legal or not politically acceptable."

Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey

"Companies like ICAP will simply move elsewhere outside the EU if Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel push ahead with this silly tax."

ICAP chief executive Michael Spencer on proposals for a financial transaction tax

EU | REUTERS, AUGUST 25

Italy, France, Spain and Belgium extended their short-selling bans in a bid to cushion bank stocks from the euro debt crisis, but hinted the curbs could be lifted by October. Spain and Italy said their bans would continue to September 30 while France's will remain in place until further notice. Belgian regulator FSMA noted its ban on short-selling has no end-date but said it would assess lifting a ban on covered short-selling as soon as market conditions allow. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which helped to coordinate the announcements, said the extended bans were up for review by end of September. Greek regulator HCMC, which had introduced a ban earlier, said it too would review its curbs by the end of September. They are due to expire on October 7. Italy, Spain, Belgium and France introduced their bans on August 12 after the ESMA failed to forge a common approach among all the bloc's 27 member states. Italy's Consob regulator also announced it had extended the rules it introduced on July 10 regarding disclosure of short-selling positions to October 14. Germany meanwhile quashed market rumours it too would broaden its long-standing shortselling restrictions. Britain, the bloc's biggest stock market, refused to join the ban in August as did the Netherlands.

UK | REUTERS, AUGUST 22

A father and two sons were jailed for a total of 19 years for a UK-based share-selling scam which spanned 10 countries and defrauded 1,700 investors of 27.5 million pounds ($45.2 million). Ringleader Tomas Wilmot was sentenced by Southwark Crown Court in London to nine years in prison while his sons Kevin and Christopher were each given a five-year sentence. The Financial Services Authority (FSA), which probed the scam with help from Malta, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Ireland, Spain, Lithuania, Iceland, Cyprus and Slovakia, said the sentences signalled another victory against boiler room fraud. The FSA said the Wilmots controlled a syndicate of 16 boiler rooms and many of their victims were elderly and in some cases suffering from serious illnesses. Kevin Wilmot oversaw the day-to-day mechanics of running the boiler rooms, while Christopher Wilmot lent the scams credibility through a Slovak IT company, Page Conception, that he controlled, the FSA said. Page Conception hosted websites for the frauds and expert analysis showed Christopher Wilmot forged signatures on share transfer forms, the FSA added. The fraud covered five years to 2008, during which time 27.5 million pounds was paid into five UK bank accounts, with 14 million pounds transferred to banks in Malta, Lithuania and Spain.


Banks must report a minimum set of data on their derivatives trades from the end of next year to help regulators monitor financial stability and spot abuses, a draft plan from market supervisors

and central bankers said. Regulators want a full picture of the $600 trillion off-exchange derivatives market at all times by requiring banks to provide transaction details to repositories. The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) of central bankers and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) want lenders to report trades according to global minimum requirements from the end of 2012. Current formats are based on voluntary agreements with banks and regulators wanting a consistent set of information. The proposed requirements and data formats would apply to both market participants reporting to trade repositories and to trade repositories reporting to the public and to regulators, the CPSS-IOSCO report said. Information going beyond the minimum requirements will also be needed in "next generation repositories" to fill "data gaps" that make it harder to spot systemic risks, the report said. The report also found that "certain information currently not supported by TRs would be helpful in assessing systemic risk and financial stability". These included current exposure, netting and collateralisation details on bilateral portfolios of off-exchange transactions, current market values of individual open OTC derivatives transactions, and information on collateral assets that are applied to OTC derivatives portfolios, including the valuation and disposition of these assets.

US | REUTERS, AUGUST 25

Warren Buffett will invest $5 billion in Bank of America Corp, stepping in to shore up the largest U.S. bank in the same way he helped prop up Goldman Sachs and General Electric during the financial crisis. Buffett and Bank of America said he made an unsolicited call to the bank on Wednesday morning offering to make an investment. Buffett told CNBC the idea came to him while taking a bath and the deal was done in 24 hours. The deal entails Buffett's insurance company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc buying $5 billion of preferred shares and receiving warrants to buy 700 million shares. The warrants helped lift Berkshire Hathaway's paper profits on the deal to more than $3 billion, although the transaction has not yet closed. The deal is expected to close on Sept. 1 and includes provisions barring Buffett from raising his total BofA stake past 14.9 percent. Fully exercised, at the most recent share count the warrants represent a 6.5 percent stake. Even though the bank has said it did not need to raise capital, investors widely believed it needed more money and to show it could raise funds easily. Employees were also relieved by the news. On at least one BofA trading floor, traders cheered when the news crossed the wires. Bank of America has been plagued by fears that bad mortgage loans and legal liabilities from loans packaged into bonds by its Countrywide unit could drag it into tens of billions of dollars in fresh losses that would stretch its capital. The deal proved again that Berkshire Hathaway has become something of a lender of last resort to the financial system, as when it invested in Goldman Sachs Group Inc and General Electric Co. Buffett's role in aiding the economy and the financial system has become symbolically important, given the lack of policy options left for the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve to stimulate demand.

SWEDEN | REUTERS, AUGUST 24

Sweden wants to check whether high-frequency trades on the stock market increase volatility and could consider some form of regulation, the country's financial markets minister said. Like other stock markets, the Swedish bourse has fallen sharply in recent weeks. Finance Markets Minister Peter Norman said the government was keeping an eye on developments. He said it was a source of worry that "the value of stable Swedish companies can change 10 percent from one day to the next". He said it was not clear if high-frequency trading did increase volatility, but that he would gather information. "If high-frequency trades strengthen that sort of movement I do not exclude that there could be some sort of regulation at Swedish or EU level," he added. For example, regulators could decide to close a stock market for a certain amount of time after a sharp market fall, he said, saying this was done in the United States in the 1980s.

SWITZERLAND | REUTERS, AUGUST 24

The Swiss government proposed changing its tax law to help banks issue CoCos, a type of bond crucial to plans to boost their capital and make them more resistant to future crises. The government wants parliament to amend the withholding tax on interest from bonds and money market paper, moving to a so-called "paying-agent principle", by which the bank of the Swiss-domiciled entity buying the instrument levies the tax. "The goal of this is to enable bonds, including CoCos, to be issued under competitive conditions in Switzerland," the government said in a statement. Switzerland looks set to require big banks UBS and Credit Suisse to maintain a total capital ratio of at least 19 percent, exceeding the new Basel III global capital requirements. Of the so-called "Swiss Finish", nine percentage points may consist of contingent convertible -- or CoCo -- bonds, which convert into equity if a bank runs into trouble. The measure, designed to ensure the state will not have to bail out any more banks after it had to rescue UBS during the financial crisis, will likely be voted on by parliament's lower house this autumn. It has already been approved by the upper chamber. An obstacle in implementing the plan has been the tax code, which made issuing CoCos very difficult.


Swiss authorities have told subsidiaries of Italian banks and insurers to seek permission to repatriate dividends or other capital to the parent company, a newspaper reported. TagesAnzeiger said Swiss subsidiaries had received letters in the last two weeks from

financial markets regulator FINMA, a sign of its concern about the health of Italian financial institutions. The newspaper said FINMA wanted to ensure that subsidiaries of Italian banks and insurers were well capitalised and that the reputation of the Swiss financial sector was not tarnished. A spokesman for the FINMA declined to comment. The newspaper, which cited no sources, did not name the banks concerned.


The likely loss of a lucrative business referring accident victims to lawyers sent shares in car insurer Admiral Group Plc down, after the group failed to reassure investors it could ride out the blow. UK authorities are considering banning an industry practice known as referral fees, blamed by many insurers for encouraging a build-up of frivolous or fraudulent actions such as claiming whiplash injuries from driving accidents. Admiral is one of the insurers which gained from this practice because it accepted payments from lawyers to refer accident victims to them. Earlier this month, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said the government was "almost certain" to ban lawyers from paying fees for accident referrals, though it conceded nothing had yet been "signed and sealed". Admiral, which insures one in every 10 cars on Britain's roads, has been seen as particularly vulnerable to a ban since it relies in part on these referral fees to generate what it terms "ancillary income", which accounted for about half its pretax profit in UK car insurance last year.


Lloyds Banking Group is in early talks with the City regulator about easing the capital burden for prospective buyers of some of its branches, the Financial Times said. The newspaper said the bank's discussion with the regulator is an attempt to remove one of the biggest obstacles to the sale of 632 of its branches. The bank hopes to pave the way for a bidder to qualify for less onerous capital rules more quickly than new competitors typically would, as its branch portfolio is being sold with an existing management team. The newspaper cited people familiar with the situation as saying the inclusion of an existing management team in the Lloyds sale could help the new owner build its own risk models more quickly. The sources cited in the FT article said the move would give Lloyds a head start in qualifying for the more favourable capital rules.


A former Moody's Investors Service analyst who bolted for India and cannot be found was ordered to pay $34.56 million in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over his alleged illegal insider trading. Deep Shah, who was a lodging analyst, has been a fugitive since

being hit with criminal and civil charges in November 2009 in connection with a federal insider-trading probe centered on Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan entered a default judgment that requires Shah to give up $8.2 million of improper profits attributed to his tips, pay $1.76 million of interest, and pay a $24.6 million civil fine. Shah, who is in his late 20s, has been accused of providing tips about two pending takeovers in 2007: Blackstone Group LP's purchase of Hilton Hotels Corp and Hellman & Friedman's purchase of software company Kronos Inc. Default judgments against parties like Shah who fail to defend lawsuits are often impossible to enforce. "We try to see if there are any assets we can execute on in the United States," said Valerie Szczepanik, an SEC lawyer. "If not, we have to explore what our options are." She said the SEC believes Shah is still in India. Shah is the last of 26 defendants criminally charged in the original portion of the government's hedge fund insider-trading probe, which was unveiled in October 2009.


Philip Baker, former managing director of the collapsed Chicago hedge fund Lake Shore Asset Management Ltd, pleaded guilty for his role in what prosecutors called a $291.8 million worldwide fraud. Baker, a Canadian citizen, admitted to one count of wire fraud, averting a trial scheduled to begin on Sept. 19, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. The 46-year-old Baker has been in U.S. custody since December 2009, six months after a 27-count indictment against him was made public. Baker had been living in Hamburg, Germany at the time and was arrested there in July 2009. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend the maximum 20 years in prison. Baker will also pay about $154.8 million in restitution. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 17 before U.S. District Judge John Darrah in Chicago. According to the plea agreement, Baker from 2002 to Sept. 2007 obtained the $291.9 million from about 900 investors he fraudulently solicited to invest in commodity pools, for the purpose of trading futures. Prosecutors said Baker advertised annual double-digit returns from some Lake Shore investments, reaching as high as 55.5 percent, when in fact he was hiding millions of dollars of trading losses. They said Baker diverted about $33 million for personal use by himself and another Lake Shore director. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission won a court order in August 2007 freezing Lake Shore's assets and a receiver was appointed that October. More than $100 million has been returned to investors so far.


Federal prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of roughly six to seven-plus years for a former trader who pleaded guilty in April 2011 in connection to a sweeping government probe into insider trading. Craig Drimal told a U.S. federal judge in Manhattan at his plea hearing that he traded in shares of former computer network equipment maker 3Com Corp and Canadian drug company Axcan Pharma Inc based on tips from lawyers at the law firm Ropes & Gray working on merger transactions. Drimal pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy charges. In court papers, federal prosecutors said that Drimal made around $6.5 million off the trades in 3Com and Axcan. They also said that Drimal lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission when he was questioned about his Axcan trades. Drimal is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 31 by U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan.


Charles Schwab Corp, the discount brokerage and money manager, has filed two lawsuits accusing 11 major banks of conspiring to manipulate Libor, which is used to set interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars of securities. According to complaints filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, where Schwab is based, the banks violated antitrust, racketeering and securities laws by teaming up to depress the London Interbank Offered Rate, a floating benchmark for what banks charge each other on short-term loans. Schwab's lawsuits said the collusion deprived it of returns on tens of billions of dollars of Libor-based investments that the company and eight of its money market and ultra-short term bond mutual funds made from 2007 to early 2011. Its lawsuits seek unspecified actual and punitive damages, which Schwab said can be tripled under federal law. Defendants include the three largest U.S. banks -- Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc. Others include Barclays Plc Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG HSBC Holdings Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, UBS AG and WestLB AG.

SOUTH KOREA | REUTERS, AUGUST 21

Deutsche Bank denied illegal stock trading charges made by the Seoul Central Prosecutors Office against one of its South Korean entities, Deutsche Securities Korea, and four of its employees. Yonhap news agency earlier reported that the charges related to options trades that caused the main KOSPI index to plunge 2.7 percent at the close of trade on November 10, erasing $27 billion of stock market capitalisation. The prosecutor's office was not immediately available for comment. "DSK (Deutsche Securities Korea) denies the charges, which will be defended. DSK did not authorize or condone any breach of market regulation," the bank said in a statement. In February 2011, DSK was fined some $1 million by the Korea Exchange (KRX) for failing to notify it in time about huge derivatives trades. The fine followed a ruling by the country's top financial regulator that the Deutsche unit manipulated the stock market. Regulators also handed down a record six month ban, halting the bank from trading shares and derivatives for its own account in April 2011.


JPMorgan Chase will pay $88.3 million to settle civil allegations of apparent violations of rules on transferring assets of countries sanctioned by the U.S. government, the Treasury Department said. The case involves 1,711 wire transfers of funds from a Cuban national processed by JPMorgan dating back to 2005 and a 2009 loan involving an Iranian shipping company. The case was brought by department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which oversees bans on U.S. entities from dealing with certain countries and goes back to dealings with Cuba during the Kennedy administration. The Treasury said JPMorgan conducted investigations into some of the possible violations, yet did not "take adequate steps to prevent further transactions." The bank's failure to correct problems and to provide information to investigators were factors in the size of the penalties. JPM's conduct was "egregious because of reckless acts or omissions," the Treasury Department said.


A federal judge ruled that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has to face a $10 billion lawsuit tied to the failure of Washington Mutual Bank. The judge refused the FDIC's request to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co over bad mortgages that were securitized by Washington Mutual. Washington Mutual, or WaMu, was seized by the Office of Thrift Supervision in September 2008 in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. The FDIC was appointed receiver and immediately sold the bank to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion. The Deutsche Bank unit filed its lawsuit in 2009 arguing that loans that were pooled into mortgage bonds did not meet the underwriting standards that had been promised by WaMu, causing investors to lose billions of dollars. A Senate committee report this year said WaMu's mortgage securitization was "polluting the financial system" with bad home loans and partly to blame for the 2008 financial crisis. The FDIC argued it should be dismissed from the lawsuit and Deutsche Bank should bring its claims against JPMorgan, which assumed WaMu's liabilities as well as assets.


A lawyer caught up in the government's massive insider trading investigation was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to participating in a scheme to trade on corporate secrets from a prominent law firm. The lawyer, Jason Goldfarb, was among the roughly 50 people who have been charged in a wide-ranging probe focused on insider trading at hedge funds. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud charges in April. The sentence Goldfarb received was slightly less than the 37 to 46 months called for by the federal sentencing guidelines and sought by federal prosecutors. But it was a much steeper sentence than sought by Goldfarb's lawyer, who requested no prison time. Prosecutors alleged that Goldfarb, 33, received inside information about mergers and acquisitions involving public companies from two lawyers at the well-known law firm Ropes & Gray. Goldfarb passed the information on to a stock trader in exchange for $32,500 in cash bribes, according to prosecutors. The two Ropes & Gray attorneys, Arthur Cutillo and Brien Santarlas, have previously pleaded guilty. Cutillo was sentenced to 30 months in June. The stock trader, Zvi Goffer, was convicted at trial along with two others in June. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan imposed Goldfarb's sentence in front of a packed courthouse following a three-hour hearing that featured emotional pleas for leniency from Goldfarb's clients, colleagues, friends and family, including his fiancée, mother, and father. Many of them said that Goldfarb's participation in the scheme was motivated by his desire to financially help his father, whose business was failing, and his mother, who was diagnosed with cancer.


A FINRA securities industry arbitration panel ordered a former Morgan Stanley Smith Barney broker to pay the firm around $1.1 million for breaching terms of two promissory notes. In March 2011, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney had accused former broker Jonathan Benham of failing to pay $888,662 owed on a promissory note, which had been executed in March 2009, and $140,779 owed on another promissory note, executed in October 2009. Arbitrators also ordered Benham to pay Morgan Stanley $500 in attorneys' fees.

The broker will accumulate an interest of 2 percent per year from March 6, 2010 on the first note and an interest of 2.75 percent per year on the second note from Oct. 27, 2010 until he completely repays the award, according to the ruling posted on FINRA's website.


A large U.S. mortgage servicer controlled by billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross sued Lender Processing Services Inc, accusing it of improperly signing documents affecting more than 30,000 residential mortgages, resulting in millions of dollars of legal bills. In its complaint filed in a Dallas County, Texas, state court, American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc said LPS and its now-closed DocX LLC unit improperly signed and notarized mortgage assignments on its behalf in all 50 U.S. states. It said American Home designated "special officers" to process foreclosures, but LPS let other workers sign these officers' signatures on documents and employed notaries who improperly notarized the documents. American Home, owned by WL Ross & Co, said it stopped using LPS after learning about these "surrogate" signers in November 2009 and sued after more than one year of talks failed to resolve the dispute. LPS said in a statement it offered to cover some of American Home's costs, but American Home refused to show proof of its losses.


The New York attorney general's booting from a panel of state officials negotiating a settlement of mortgage abuses may shore up his political base and enforcement agenda. Eric Schneiderman's resistance to a possible $25 billion settlement being negotiated with the largest mortgage servicers has already drawn praise from groups representing minorities and organized labor. On August 23, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced the removal of Schneiderman from the committee of state officials that has been working with federal agencies to address "robosigning" and other shortcuts that banks took in their haste to remove borrowers from their homes. The states and the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development have been negotiating for months with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial. On August 24, a day after Miller announced his removal, Schneiderman won support for his stance from a variety of national and state organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. In a letter to government officials leading the mortgage investigation, including Miller, they said the group should not be pressured into a deal that does not adequately address the harm done.


The chief executive of expert networking firm Primary Global Research LLC has been implicated in the government's sprawling insider trading probe, court papers show. Unni Narayanan, the chief executive, has not been charged with wrongdoing. He is among several people affiliated with Primary Global who, prosecutors believe, "participated in a scheme to

defraud certain public companies of material, nonpublic information," according to a filing by Ethan Balogh, a lawyer for James Fleishman, who faces an August 29 insider trading trial. Balogh wrote that the government identified Narayanan and other onetime colleagues of Fleishman, a former Primary Global sales manager, in a confidential July 15 court filing as having been involved in the scheme.


A U.S. judge has left largely intact a securities lawsuit alleging Deutsche Bank misrepresented its exposure to mortgage-backed securities. Deutsche Bank was hit with several proposed class actions in 2009 relating to six offerings of preferred securities that had raised over $6.2 billion. Investors claim that between 2005 and 2007, the bank significantly increased its dealings in residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations, which it failed to disclose. In a ruling, U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts in Manhattan dismissed plaintiff claims relating to a stock offering from October 2006. However, Batts left intact claims relating to five other offerings, or gave the plaintiffs a chance to refashion their allegations.


Large U.S. banks defending themselves against a mass of state and federal mortgage probes face a difficult tactical decision following New York's exit from settlement talks. While a settlement with the states remaining at the negotiating table may be easier to strike, and could give skittish investors a sense of the size of banks' liability, a partial deal would leave open the question of whether the more aggressive attorneys general will be able to extract their own massive settlements, analysts and industry lawyers said. Federal regulators and state AGs have been investigating bank mortgage and foreclosure practices that came to light last year, including the use of "robo-signers" to sign hundreds of unread foreclosure documents a day. States and the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development have been negotiating for months with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial. The uncertainty over banks' mortgage-related exposures has weighed heavily on their stocks. A focus of the settlement talks is what type of legal protections banks will get for agreeing to change their practices and for paying a combined penalty of possibly around $20 billion. The contentious issue has also caused fissures within the block of states dealing with the banks. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman insisted that any deal should not preclude states from pursuing further cases against the banks related to their mortgage practices. But he has since been booted from the committee working on the deal.


The UK regulator is considering whether ENRC shareholder Alexander Mashkevitch is a "fit and proper" person, a key test for company directors that could pave the way for him to become chairman of the Kazakh miner, a source close to the matter said. The source said London-listed ENRC's brokers submitted Mashkevitch's application to the UK Listing Authority (UKLA) last week, and said the process could take up to three weeks. The issue of whether Mashkevitch and ENRC's two other founder shareholders take a more active role in the company is at the centre of its long-awaited corporate governance review, the results of which are expected in September. The review follows a damaging boardroom spat, just months after ENRC's image was left battered in 2010 by the purchase of a Congo asset expropriated from rival First Quantum. Media reports said that when ENRC floated in 2007, UK regulators deemed Mashkevitch was "not fit and proper" to lead a listed company. One major hang-up was a long-running Belgian court case involving the miner's founders which was settled at the end of June 2011. The Belgian case, which involved allegations of money laundering and forgery, was settled for an undisclosed sum, but the three founders made no formal admission of guilt.

UK | BREAKINGVIEWS, AUGUST 22

Banks have spent most of the past four years resisting tougher rules. But it's time to go easy on them. With markets tumbling and economies stuttering, banks are being more risk-averse than reckless. A little slack from the regulators might encourage them to lend. The market capitalisation of most big western lenders is now below the value of their tangible common equity, implying that they are unlikely to generate a decent return on equity for the foreseeable future. In effect, investors are telling banks to shrink. But if lenders heed that advice, economic growth will be even more constrained. One radical suggestion is to scrap or delay the new Basel III bank capital regime. That would be a mistake. While far from flawless, the new rules fix many of the distortions that helped trigger the credit crunch. Delaying implementation, meanwhile, would have little effect. Officially, Basel III does not fully come into force until 2019, yet every large bank is aiming to meet the 7 percent minimum ratio by 2013. Fortunately, the new Basel rule book has a tool designed to smooth out the peaks and -- crucially -- the troughs of the economic cycle. This is the so-called counter-cyclical capital buffer, which can be set anywhere between 0 and 2.5 percent of risk-weighted assets. In good times, the buffer should be higher in case a bubble is about to burst. By the same token, capital cushions should be worn down in times of difficulty. If regulators signaled their intention to set the buffer low -- at say, 0.5 percent -- they would send a powerful message that the post-crisis capital rebuild was coming to an end.

NIGERIA | REUTERS, AUGUST 25

Nigeria's anti-graft agency, set up in 2002, was supposed to crack down on corruption in Africa's most populous nation but it has failed to deliver, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch said in its report that endemic corruption has fuelled political violence, fraudulent elections, and other human rights violations, as living standards have fallen despite Nigeria's vast oil wealth.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested senior political figures, including former state governors, but the cases have often failed to end in prosecutions. In June, the EFCC arrested the former speaker of parliament Dimeji Bankole, one of the country's most powerful politicians, saying it feared he planned to flee abroad to avoid facing fraud allegations. James Ibori, one of Nigeria's richest politicians and the former governor of the oil-producing state of Delta, was arrested last year in Dubai at the request of Britain's Metropolitan Police. He has been charged in Britain.


The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is comfortable with the overall amount of capital at U.S. banks, FDIC Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg said. "As a general matter I would say the answer to that is yes," Gruenberg said in response to a question about the amount of capital banks are holding.


Two of mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc's units were ordered to stop writing new business due to their failure to meet capital requirements. PMI said the Arizona Department of Insurance placed PMI Mortgage Insurance Co (MIC) and PMI Insurance Co under regulatory supervision. PMI also said PMI Mortgage Assurance Co, a subsidiary of MIC, was no longer eligible to write new insurance, leaving the company with no way to write new business. PMI's units will now have to work with their regulators to facilitate the run-off of its existing policies. PMI said the department may take steps to initiate state court receivership proceedings for the rehabilitation or liquidation of MIC, which will lead to about $735 million of the holding company's outstanding debts becoming due and payable. The company said it did not have access to enough funds to repay these debts. PMI said it was exploring potential capitalization and restructuring alternatives and has engaged Willis Capital Markets & Advisory and Evercore Partners as financial advisors.

ASIA | REUTERS, AUGUST 22

The hiring window is open a crack for the Asian financial sector, keeping opportunities afloat for now while the industry shrinks across the globe. Commercial and private bankers, mid-office staffers, risk managers and prime brokers are needed. Fund managers and lawyers are in demand as well. Asia's persistent economic growth and tough regulations in the United States and Europe have combined to provide a pipeline of financial jobs in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore. While banks and advisory groups continue to take applications, the pace of hiring across Asia has slowed, executives and headhunters say, as the region is not immune to global market turmoil hitting North America and Europe. Adding to the slowdown are thin fee margins and a shallow talent pool that has led to big jumps in Asia-related costs. Despite these factors, job seekers are finding openings at compliance desks, private equity funds and law firms, albeit for less money. Excessively paid professionals on fat overseas packages are now the exception and not the rule as they were before the financial crisis. One major force behind the Asia hiring scene remains regulatory moves. Key structural changes proposed by new U.S. and European rules are boosting Asian middle-office staffing that

handle compliance and risk. Among the banks growing in this area is JPMorgan, which opened a new middle office for its global corporate banking division in Singapore. Big European banks in particular are looking at major reorganisations as they want to shift some of their operations out of their U.S. bases in order to avoid the new rules brought in by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. The United States' 'Volcker rule', which bans banks from engaging in proprietary trading, is another driver. While U.S. banks are unable to engage in proprietary trading anywhere in the world, non-American institutions are looking at resurrecting their Wall Street prop desks elsewhere.

CHINA | BREAKINGVIEWS, AUGUST 19

The new rules China has proposed for its banks will make them more shockproof. But not really more stable. The new regime follows the letter of the Basel reforms pretty closely, even down to fancy features like counter-cyclical capital buffers. But the distortions that promote risky behaviour remain. If anything, scarcer capital will probably encourage banks to push more loans out through the back door. Lenders will soon have to hold more core capital against their risky assets -- 9.5 percent for banks deemed "too big to fail". The four biggest lenders, who report earnings from next week, meet that already, though the next four don't. The big banks should be able to meet the new rules -- just. The top six will need 3.5 trillion yuan of new core capital, assuming their risk-weighted assets grow 15 percent a year from 2011 to 2016, when the rules kick in for all banks. If earnings grow 12 percent -- in line with nominal GDP -- retained earnings would fill the gap. Things get trickier if existing loans go bad. Credit Suisse estimates 5 percent could go rotten; ratings agency Moody's a more pessimistic 12 percent. Even after new conservative provisioning rules, that could mean an extra 2 trillion yuan of uncovered bad loans at the biggest six banks -- which based on current payout ratios is roughly equivalent to their total dividends for the next six years. Banks could respond by lending less. Or they could bend the rules, as they already are, by making off-balance sheet loans and staying mostly one step ahead of the regulator. Many now package loans and trade-related securities as wealth management products, and book a fee. Loans off the balance sheet are over 50 percent of those on it, according to China's central bank. Basel rules do little to address this shadow banking sector. Chinese regulators are aware of the problem, but their hands are tied: seriously cracking down on off-book loans would create a huge credit crunch, while cramming them back on to the balance sheet might leave the banks in need of emergency equity. Capital adequacy rules don't help resolve this stalemate: they may even make things worse.


Colonial Bancgroup Inc and its trustee filed a lawsuit against former auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC and Crowe Horwath LLP, charging them with accounting

malpractice and professional negligence for not catching a fraud that led to the bank's collapse. The complaint was filed in a Circuit Court in Montgomery County, Alabama. It also accuses the auditors of breach of contract, saying that PwC's independent audits of its financial statements violated generally accepted accounting standards and served to conceal the seven-year fraud that drained it of $1.8 billion and left it with hundreds of millions of dollars in worthless or nonexistent assets on its balance sheet.

CANADA | REUTERS, AUGUST 23

Zungui Haixi came under increasing pressure after the sole analyst covering the Chinese footwear and clothing company dropped his rating on the stock and two law firms launched investigations into its books. The company's shares, listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, fell more than 75 percent, after it revealed that Ernst & Young suspended its audit of the company pending an investigation into undisclosed issues the accounting firm had identified. The company has declined to provide more details about the issues raised by the auditor. It has said its audit committee intends to address the issues via an independent investigation. Mackie Research analyst Rob Cavallo said in a note to clients that the firm was putting its recommendation and target price under review, in light of the audit suspension and few details provided. The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada issued an advisory saying that it was halting trading in Zungui shares pending a clarification of company affairs. Ontario-based law firms Siskinds LLP and Sutts, Strosberg LLP, which specialize in class action lawsuits, issued statements informing investors that they have begun to investigate the company.

IRELAND | REUTERS, AUGUST 25

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has been asked whether a restructuring credit event has occurred with respect to bancassurer Irish Life & Permanent, the second such request in as many months. A credit event is financial industry jargon for default on payment, breach of bond covenants or other event that casts doubt on an issuer's ability to service its debt. The ISDA ruled in July that Irish Life & Permanent had suffered a restructuring credit event meaning that an auction had to be held to settle Irish Life & Permanent's credit default swaps (CDS), that are used to insure against default.

OMAN | REUTERS, AUGUST 24

Oman's regulator, Capital Market Authority, is encouraging consolidation of brokerages in the small non-OPEC producer and expects at least three to four initial public offerings next year, its executive president said. The regulator was "seriously considering" steps like encouraging the merging of the brokerage companies, addressing the issue of reducing trade commissions and observing and insisting that companies follow a strict corporate governance code, CMA's Yahya al-Jabri told Reuters. The Omani market has more than 20 brokerages, some of which are divisions of banks such as Bank Muscat, National Bank of Oman, or Bank Dhofar. Like most other markets in the Gulf, slumping volumes and a sharp drop in market valuations have hampered the local capital markets. Jabri also said there was a need for new regulations for the sukuk market. Oman is the only Gulf Arab state which until now has not set up a bank specifically offering products and services complying with Islamic law.


Chinese company SinoTech Energy Ltd said Nasdaq has asked the company to provide more information regarding shortseller alfredlittle.com's allegations about inaccuracies in the company's filings. The oilfield services company said it intends to cooperate with Nasdaq so that its American depository shares (ADS) resume trading. SinoTech Energy, the latest Chinese company to come under the scanner of authorities, said it reserves the right to take necessary actions regarding efforts to "defame the company and victimize its shareholders."


Hedge funds, wary of more intervention by European stock market regulators, are being forced to rethink investment strategies as authorities decide whether to extend short-selling bans. Managers and the banks that help them structure their trades say they are confused by some aspects of the bans, which were brought in by four countries earlier this month to curb wild swings in stock markets, particularly financial shares. The measures have so far failed to prevent falls in financial stocks, which are heavily exposed to the euro zone debt crisis. Some managers are thinking twice before placing trades in case the curbs on short-selling financial stocks in Italy, France and Spain are renewed or extended to other countries.

Long-short equity hedge funds, which often match a bet on a rising stock price with a bet on a falling stock price in the same sector, and event-driven funds, which hedge their bets on events such as a takeover, are among funds where the potential impact is greatest.


European banks like Societe Generale and Dexia SA are reeling from bad loans, but they are also suffering from a less obvious problem: their reliance on bond markets to fund operations. Unlike U.S. banks, which fund a greater percentage of their loans using deposits, investor-owned banks in Europe generally depend more on borrowing in the short-term capital markets. That leaves the European banks exposed to the vagaries of bond investors, who might suddenly demand much higher rates for their money or take it all back and put a bank at the mercy of a government for a bailout. Spikes in short-term rates for some European banks in recent weeks have raised fears of just that kind of meltdown. The turmoil points to the need for vulnerable European banks to shrink their loan books to sizes more in line with what their deposits can support, or increase their deposit base. Analysts are also calling for more disclosure from the banks around their funding profiles. These banks find themselves in a corner. Since the 2008 financial crisis, many have been trying hard to raise more deposits, but it is proving to be tough. Deposits for investor-owned banks are more difficult to collect in Europe, where banks owned by local governments or by depositors have tax and cost advantages and a stranglehold on the market, said Michigan State University professor Rocco Huang. Competition for deposits has driven up costs, especially in Spain. Some banks are looking abroad. Dexia has branched into Turkey to get deposits, but that might not be sustainable. At Paris-based Societe Generale, loans are 1.2 times as much as deposits, according to data compiled by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Dexia, the Franco-Belgian bank headquartered in Brussels, has 2.5 times as much money out on loan as it has in deposits. At New York-based JPMorgan in comparison, loans use only two-thirds of the money the bank holds in customer deposits.

GERMANY | REUTERS, AUGUST 23

The comments made by Germany's labour minister about future euro zone bailout payments needing to be covered by collateral do not reflect the government's position, a government source said. Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen -- who is also a deputy president of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) -- said that future euro zone bailout payments should be covered by collateral such as gold reserves or stakes in state industry.

BRAZIL | REUTERS, AUGUST 19

Brazil's high reserve requirements and home-grown banks will give the country an edge in keeping up liquidity, even if a global crisis threatens credit markets elsewhere. Because lenders are required to keep so much money locked up at the central bank, policymakers have the option of freeing up billions of reais if money from abroad and local sources gets scarce. Brazil has not yet seen liquidity worries, a source in the government's economic team told Reuters. "The crisis now is sovereign, not financial," he said. "We haven't yet seen any sign of a lack of liquidity in the country." If the country does experience those problems, lowering reserve requirements even by a modest amount will free up cash. That would eliminate worries about credit seizing up, the source said.


Switzerland and Britain struck a deal to tax money kept by British residents in secret Swiss bank accounts, which will gift a windfall to the cash-strapped British government and helps the Alpine country's banks come clean on untaxed accounts. The Swiss bankers' association welcomed the agreement but some tax experts wondered if it was the best deal possible for Britain. Under the deal, money held by British residents with Swiss banks will be subject to a levy between 19 and 34 percent of the account balance and a withholding tax will apply going forward, the Swiss finance ministry said in a statement. Swiss banks will have to pay 500 million Swiss francs ($630 million) upfront and the retro-active levy could net around 5 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) for the British government, keen to boost revenue as it struggles with one of the largest budget deficits among industrialised countries. From 2013 onward, a withholding tax between 27 percent and 48 percent will be applied, depending on the category of capital income. Both rates are slightly lower than the respective top tax rates in Britain. The deal, which has to be approved by parliaments, follows the blueprint of a deal Switzerland sealed with Germany two weeks ago.


A U.S. law meant to snuff out billions of dollars in offshore tax evasion has drawn the criticism of the world's banks and business people, who dismiss it as imperialist and "the neutron bomb of the global financial system." The unusually broad regulation, known as FATCA, or the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, makes the world's financial institutions something of an extension of the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service -- something no other country does for its tax regime. Conceived as a way to enlist the world in a crackdown on wealthy Americans evading tax, it gives financial institutions and investment entities a choice: either collect and turn over data on U.S. clients with accounts of at least $50,000, or withhold 30 percent of the interest, dividend and investment payments due those clients and send the money to the IRS. Foreign institutions and

entities that refuse, or fail, to do so face bills for the taxes due, a draconian penalty of 40 percent of the amount in question and heightened scrutiny by the IRS. The legislation that created FATCA was introduced in 2009 by four congressmen during a crackdown on UBS, the Swiss bank giant that sold tax evasion services. Signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama in March 2010, FATCA goes into effect on January 1, 2014, for most types of transactions and a year later for other payments. The phase-in, announced in April 2011, already represents a backtracking by the U.S. Treasury Department amid criticism from foreign banks about FATCA's reach, costs and still-to-be-ironed-out points. It originally had planned a January 1, 2013, start date. In a barrage of letters to the Treasury, IRS and Congress, opponents from Australia to Switzerland to Hong Kong assail FATCA's application to a broad swath of institutions and entities. Those affected include commercial, private and investment banks and shells and trusts; broker-dealers; insurers; mutual, hedge and private-equity funds; domiciliary companies; limited liability companies, partnerships; and other intermediaries and withholding agents. FATCA also covers affiliates of the entities. Foreign banks object to the rule's applicability to financial instruments including bearer bonds and payments which "pass through" securitization pools, a component of syndicated loans.


Backed by powerful companies spending millions of dollars, Washington lobbyists are fighting in the marble corridors of Congress for a tax break on $1.5 trillion in profits held overseas to escape the U.S. tax man. When lawmakers return in September from summer break, powerful high-tech and pharmaceutical companies will step up their push for an overseas profit tax repatriation holiday and pose a test for President Barack Obama. The idea has been kicking around for months, gaining only limited traction, but supporters sense their moment may be near, with the economy sluggish and Obama searching for new ways to ignite business investment and create jobs. A repatriation tax holiday offers just that, advocates say, although critics contend the proposal's promises of economic stimulus are illusory and serve only to mask a tax break costing the United States $80 billion over 10 years. The White House, so far, has stood firm against a holiday, refusing to consider it outside the context of making broad changes in the convoluted tax code. The White House and other Democratic opponents want to use it as leverage as long as they can to gain concessions from corporations on other tax reform issues. Congress still feels burned by the last repatriation tax holiday. Approved in 2004 with the backing of President George W. Bush, that tax break did little to boost the economy, despite promises of job-creating investment.


Switzerland will not let the United States decide which legal procedures the Alpine country should use to transfer client data of American tax dodgers who hide their money in Swiss bank accounts, its president told diplomats. Micheline Calmy-Rey told Swiss ambassadors in Lucerne that the U.S. justice and tax authorities were not satisfied with the revised double taxation agreement, "which is oriented towards the future, and with the UBS tax deal, which was a solution for the past". She said U.S. authorities maintain pressure on a series of other financial institutes and try to obtain client data concerning the past. "We do not accept American attempts to tell Switzerland which legal procedures it should use to transfer data," she said.

She added that these were procedures that were "either too time-consuming or not even legal or not politically acceptable", adding the procedures in place were sufficient to reach good results.


Broking giant ICAP will quit the European Union if a financial transactions tax proposed by Germany and France takes effect across the bloc, the company's chief executive said in a newspaper article. "Companies like ICAP will simply move elsewhere outside the EU if Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel push ahead with this silly tax," ICAP chief executive Michael Spencer was quoted as saying in the Independent on Sunday newspaper. The French and German leaders proposed the tax on August 16 as part of proposals to shield the euro zone from a deepening debt crisis, but Britain and the Netherlands have opposed such a measure, particularly if it does not apply globally. Spencer, who has been a major donor to Britain's ruling Conservative Party, said that financial firms would relocate to New York and Singapore if such a tax came into being.

HONG KONG | REUTERS, AUGUST 22

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said that foreign direct investment (FDI) in China using offshore yuan should be launched by the end of 2011. HKMA Deputy Chief Executive Peter Pang made the remarks during a media briefing. Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang said last week that China would expand investment options for offshore yuan, including allowing Hong Kong companies to directly invest in mainland China using yuan.

INDIA | REUTERS, AUGUST 24

The Indian government is in talks with the central bank and stock market regulator to allow infrastructure finance companies to issue bonds to foreign investors, four sources with direct knowledge told Reuters. Allowing foreign investors to buy such bonds is intended to increase funding available for big-ticket projects such as roads and power plants in India, where inadequate infrastructure drives inflation and acts as a brake on growth. India requires infrastructure investment of $1 trillion over the five years beginning April 2012, the government estimates. In its budget in February 2011, the government raised by an additional $20 billion, to $25 billion, the limit on foreign institutional investment in corporate bonds of

duration longer than five years issued by companies in the sector. Now, New Delhi is contemplating expanding the definition of eligible issuers to include infrastructure finance firms.


High-frequency trading firm Optiver Holding BV has set aside $19.3 million to deal with one of the biggest oil-manipulation cases ever brought by the U.S. futures regulator, according to a copy of the private firm's annual report obtained by Reuters. The three-year-long case, brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against the Amsterdam-based firm, may now be heading for settlement. The report, given to Reuters by a source who has been following the case, was adopted by shareholders in the private firm at the end of June. A table contained in the report said the Amsterdam-based company had set aside 13.4 million euros, equivalent to $19.3 million. According to the CFTC, Optiver reaped a $1 million profit in 2007 by "banging the close" in crude, gasoline and heating oil markets with a rapid-fire trading program nicknamed "the hammer." Banging the close is an illegal strategy in which a firm accumulates a large position just before the market settles, and offsets that position at the close itself, manipulating prices through sheer volume of trades.


An outspoken senator is demanding the U.S. futures regulator hold an emergency meeting to implement its long-delayed plan for position limits, saying evidence shows excessive speculation has raised oil and gasoline prices. The call by Senator Bernie Sanders comes nearly a week after he released data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showing the names and energy positions of more than 200 traders from December 2007 to June 2008 -- the first time the confidential data has been made public. Sanders said in a letter to Gary Gensler, the CFTC chairman, that he hoped the public release of the oil trading information would spur the CFTC to eliminate excessive speculation as required by the statute "so that prices accurately reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand". Sanders said speculators were responsible for causing gasoline and heating oil to spike in 2008, when prices at the pump topped $4 a gallon, and were "are playing the same games again". He rejected claims the CFTC cannot impose strict position limits because it lacks sufficient information -- a statement Sanders called "laughable" -- and encouraged the agency to hold an emergency meeting to implement the new safeguards.


Gary Barnett, a New York-based lawyer, was appointed to lead the Commodities Futures Trading Commission's new division monitoring major participants in the swaps market, the agency said. Barnett, who now heads the U.S. derivatives and structured finance practice group

at the law firm of Linklaters in New York, will be responsible for overseeing swap dealers and intermediaries in the swaps market. Barnett has also been involved in the development of clearing systems for the derivatives market, a main reform in the Dodd-Frank law.

INDONESIA | REUTERS, AUGUST 22

Indonesia's central bank plans to review majority ownership in sharia banks in the country, deputy governor Halim Alamsyah said. "We will redefine majority ownership in sharia banks," said Alamsyah, adding it would cover bank ownership by individuals and institutions.

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FINANCIAL CRISIS & ECONOMY TAXstatic.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20110826/GRB26082011.pdf · 8/26/2011 · Several EU regulators extended short-selling bans despite protests