we robot April 20, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : events , add a commentThe We Robot conference is happening here this weekend. Looks interesting (here is the program), and there’s to be a live video feed.
sec consultation on jobs act implementation April 11, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : consultation, transparency , add a commentThe SEC invites public comment on implementation of the JOBS Act:
Under a process first utilized with the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the public will be able to comment before the agency even proposes its regulatory reform rules and amendments.
The SEC is generally required by law to establish a public comment period at the time it proposes rules or rule amendments. However, similar to the Commission’s action with the Dodd-Frank Act, the public will have an opportunity to voice its views before rules or amendments are proposed under the JOBS Act. The public also will be able to see what others are saying to the agency about these issues.
There are separate web comment forms with respect to different titles of the Act, which are available here. The forms don’t include questions which might influence the responses, which is a good thing, but responding by means of the forms really requires some knowledge of the statute. The SEC does provide a link to the statute but the language in which it is drafted is pretty impenetrable to those who aren’t familiar with the federal securities laws. This does raise some questions about what the SEC thinks it is achieving by asking for public comment.
sec jobs act faq April 10, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : financial regulation , add a commentIs here. The SEC also published a document analysing Reg. D filings. Here’s a brief excerpt:
If there were a built-in bias against private offerings as suggested in a recent Wall Street Journal article.. it is not manifested through dominance in capital raised through public offerings or supported by current capital raising trends. Moreover, the estimated amount of capital raised through Reg D offerings in 2010 ($878 billion) is similar in magnitude to the estimated amount of capital raised in 2000 prior to start of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory environment ($960 billion..). In this respect, and given the pace of 2011 Reg D offerings, there is no evidence that the Reg D offering market has shrunk over this period.
transparency and international investment April 10, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : governance , add a commentThe Statement of the European Union and the United States on Shared Principles for International Investment includes the following principle:
Governments should ensure the highest levels of transparency and public participation in the development of domestic laws and other measures relating to investment.
Note, the highest levels not only of transparency, but also of public participation.
excellent (but snarky) comment on the jobs act by the deal professor April 3, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : consumers , add a commentIs here.
april is national financial literacy month April 3, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : consumers , add a commentThe CFPB asks for stories. There have been quite a few of these financial literacy months now, and the problems persist. And I would bet that the Jobs Act will not help.
only limited consultation necessary on freezing and confiscation of proceeds of crime March 30, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a commentThat is what the EU Commission seems to think. The explanatory memorandum for the recent proposal for a directive on freezing and confiscation of the proceeds of crime states:
The proposal has been prepared in accordance with the Commission’s better regulation principles. Minimum standards for consultation of interested parties have been met in the preparation of this proposal and the impact assessment.
Wide consultations and discussions with experts were carried out in the Camden Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network Plenary meeting (September 2010) and in eight meetings of the EU informal Asset Recovery Offices’ Platform between 2009 and 2011.
No open Internet consultation was carried out, as confiscation is a specialised topic where limited expertise is available. Contacts were established with civil society, notably with organisations promoting legality, the fight against organised crime and the protection of the victims of crime.
imf paper on risk-weighted assets March 29, 2012
Posted by Bradley in : harmonization , add a commentVanessa Le Leslé & Sofiya Avramova, Revisiting Risk-Weighted Assets: Why Do RWAs Differ Across Countries and What Can Be Done About It?, IMF Working Paper WP/12/90 (Mar. 2012). Here’s the abstract:
In this paper, we provide an overview of the concerns surrounding the variations in the calculation of risk-weighted assets (RWAs) across banks and jurisdictions and how this might undermine the Basel III capital adequacy framework. We discuss the key drivers behind the differences in these calculations, drawing upon a sample of systemically important banks from Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. We then discuss a range of policy options that could be explored to fix the actual and perceived problems with RWAs, and improve the use of risk-sensitive capital ratios.
The Basel Capital Adequacy regime is the most intense set of international standards for financial regulation we have. The paper illustrates that for a number of reasons even this regime does not fully harmonize the treatment of risk-weighted assets, partly because different countries have adopted different stages of Basel, and for other reasons. The authors caution that full harmonization might not in fact be ideal because it might lead to herd behavior but they illustrate that bottom line capital ratios disguise a wide range of behaviors with respect to holdings of assets.