The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg is preparing a preliminary ruling in response to questions from the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia on the matter of the cancellation of subordinated bonds in all recapitalised Slovenian banks. To this end oral proceedings will now focus on claims by the
Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, will push for the financial transaction tax, despite opposition from the UK as well as several banks. He holds that efforts should be made to convince more nations to join the 11 who already declared their intention to participate in the tax. The measure under consideration is intended to
Seven years into the financial crisis and the question remains: are investors better protected today than they were in 2008? The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users is particularly well placed to answer this question and provides a mixed view on the issue. With a team of five, Better Finance fights an uphill battle to be heard amongst industry heavyweights such as the European Banking Federation. Guillaume
The asset management industry frequently complains about the fact that they face more and more regulation, that they are under pressure from passive managers and clients and that technological progress increases competition. One would start to wonder if there are any perks to the job at all. What they deliberately fail to mention are the
It is rather telling that the European Commission’s website features a page called “Expert Groups explained”, aimed at clarifying what Expert Groups are, what their role is and how they are constituted. In a nutshell, Expert Groups are bodies set up by the Commission or its departments to provide advice and expertise in relation to
BETTER FINANCE invited stakeholders to discuss the concept of a Capital Markets Union at its international conference on 6 May in Brussels. Jonathan Hill, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, will address the conference, as well as other prominent speakers such as MEPs Philippe de Backer, Markus Ferber, Elisa Ferreira, Sven Giegold
By Arnaud Houdmont, Chief Communications Officer “86% of investment managers stunk in 2014” “Active Management Funds Underperform Over Almost All Time Frames” “Epic Fail: Another Dismal Year for Active Management” “Can anything save active management?” These are just a few of the latest headlines confining the “active management” of investment fund portfolios to the dustbin
The PanSlovenian Shareholders’ Association (VZMD), BETTER FINANCE’s member organisation in Slovenia, is representing the holders of subordinate bonds of NLB bank, formerly Slovenia’s largest bank, which went into bankruptcy in December 2013 and produced misleading financial statements overstating the value of its equity. VZMD’s President and legal experts confronted former Slovenian nominee to the European Commission – Ms
Although the green paper on Capital Markets Union (CMU) was not published yet, early hints as to its content have already appeared. A draft version of the paper reportedly lists the following potential initiatives: driving high-quality securitisation standards, relaxing capital requirements for insurers and banks investing in infrastructure, streamlining the prospectus requirements on companies raising
Shortly after the adoption of the Commission’s work programme 2015, an interview with Commissioner Hill conducted by Bloomberg was published earlier today, December 17. If you have been following the latest financial news, you might have stumbled upon articles decrying the intention to scrap the structural banking reform, as suggested in Hill’s letter to Timmermans.