The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s accounting watchdog, is to be scrapped in favour of a stronger regulator with more power on investigating company directors (currently the FCR can only investigate them if they are also registered with an accounting body) and ability to issue harsher penalties including higher fines, and even prison terms.
Yesterday, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its report on high earners for 2017, available for the first time in a user-friendly format on the remuneration of “staff whose professional activities have a material impact on” the risk profile of the financial institution. The Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV) sets out principles for sound
Yesterday EU ambassadors endorsed the Council’s position on a proposal to grant easier access to SMEs trying to list and issue securities on financial markets while safeguarding investor protection and market integrity. According to the Council’s Press Release, the proposed rules aim to reduce the administrative burden and provide SMEs with simpler access to capital
By Jean Medernach – The main role of EFRAG, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, is to advise the European Commission on whether new IFRS should be endorsed in Europe. The criteria for endorsement of new or revised IFRS are: Technical: do they meet the criteria of understandability, relevance, reliability and comparability of the financial
Earlier in February, the ESAs – the European Banking Authority, the European Securities and Markets Authority, and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority — failed to make the necessary amendments to the rules regulating the Key Information Document (KID) for PRIIPs , and thus will not be forcing managers to include information on a
The Government, the National Assembly and the Senate just appointed members of the “College” of the AMF. The public authorities decided to give priority to candidates from the financial industry and listed companies, and, despite his long experience with financial markets and financial supervision at the European level, excluding the only candidate brought forward by
Christian Voigt, a senior regulatory adviser at Fidessa, and former vice president at Deutsche Boerse has published a blog post warning that there may be up to 230 stocks listed in the UK and EU27 at risk of Brexit because of a Mifid II trading rule. According to Voigt, “The rule requires EU firms to
European lawmakers have taken aim at the influence of the largest index fund managers. Last week the European Parliament cited OECD research and warned that higher levels of common ownership result in “hidden social cost and reduced product competition”. Sven Giegold, a Green MEP, called for action from the European Commission, saying that “the effects
A report, presented by the pan-European financial regulator ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority, shows a significant drain on fund performance, due to the high fees charged by investment houses for UCITS (Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities). The data shows that the impact on retail investors is even higher, as they
Jack Bogle founded the Vanguard Group in 1975 as a non-profit mutual fund company exclusively owned by its clients with as overall goal to serve the interests of individual investors. Vanguard evolved to become the second largest fund manager in the world today. He wrote many books, including one in which he denounced the excessive