PARIS – The European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA), the new pan-EU financial markets watchdog, is re-opening one of the most controversial topics of the last few years – regulation of hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative types of investment vehicles. Political agreement on the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) was finally reached last November after 18 months of sometimes bitter wrangling between EU finance ministries, as well as between lawmakers and governments, often amidst intense lobbying by the financial services industry.

NEW YORK – Regulators must mutually recognise each other’s regulation to avoid the damaging consequences of so-called “extra-territoriality” for the international derivatives markets, eight global and regional trade associations warned US and European regulators in July.

PARIS – Jean-Pierre Jouyet, chairman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the French securities regulator, has laid out the objectives of the reorganisation currently being undertaken at his agency. The focus will now be on market conduct and macro-financial risk, rather than product regulation, he said in a speech to a fund management audience, delivered for him by Edouard Vieillefond, AMF’s head of regulation policy and international affairs, at the end of June.

BASEL – Stefan Ingves, Sweden’s central bank governor, became the world’s top banking regulator at the end of June when he took over as chairman of the Basel Committee of global banking supervisors, the body that sets international banking standards.

WASHINGTON – Europe must view America’s insurance regulation on an “outcomes” basis when judging whether it’s equivalent to the upcoming Solvency II regime in order to avoid putting US or European Union insurers at a competitive disadvantage, a top US regulator told Washington lawmakers in July.

BASEL – Regulators have a role to play in helping to re-establish the tarnished securitisation market, which is still struggling to recover from the damaging consequences of playing a key part in the financial crisis. Although asset securitisation provides potential benefits, reforms are necessary to address the incentive conflicts and misalignments highlighted by the crisis, says the Basel-based Joint Forum in a report issued in mid-July.*

BASEL – The costs to a central counterparty (CCP) clearing house of individual or multiple dealer defaults are likely to be small as long as the CCP makes sufficient allowance for extreme risk and time variation in risk when setting margin, or collateral, requirements, for dealer members, according to a study by global financial regulators.

America’s insurers are worried about the regulation debate; and think their own regulators aren't standing up for them

G20 farm ministers put France’s commodity priorities under the microscope as conflicts of interest stymie action

BRUSSELS, July 20 (Global Risk Regulator) – Europe’s 8,000-plus banks will have to raise some €460 billion ($653 billion) in capital by 2019 to protect themselves from a future financial crisis, the European Union’s top financial regulator said today in introducing draft banking rules designed to strengthen the sector.