FRANKFURT-am-Main, Germany, November 21 (Global Risk Regulator) – Charlie McCreevy, Europe’s top financial services regulator, says it’s up to US insurance regulators to resolve the row that’s broken out over America’s regulation of reinsurance.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri, November 19 (Global Risk Regulator) – America’s reinsurance regulators have confirmed they will review controversial proposals for modernising the way the US regulates reinsurance business at an early December meeting.

LONDON – Europe’s banking supervisors have reiterated that the risk to the financial system presented by commodity firms trading in derivatives is significantly smaller relative to the risks posed by banks and investment firms.

LONDON, October 24 (Global Risk Regulator) – US authorities need to draw up a “national plan” for moving to a single set of global accounting standards – a shift that could come in as little as four years – according to America’s chief accounting rule setter.

A top US insurance supervisor appealed for calm as the long-simmering wrangle between Europe and America over the way the US regulates reinsurance boiled over into a heated war of words complete with threats and implications of bad faith.

The long-awaited final rule applying America’s version of the international Basel II bank safety rules to the nation’s biggest banks got a generally favourable welcome from bankers after years of contention.

An action Blueprint proposes urgent regulatory policy reform to halt decline in global competitiveness of US financial firms By Melvyn Westlake

Late issuance of technical papers added to the difficulties of implementing ambitious EU law. But it could have been worse By Melvyn Westlake

LONDON – Bankers in Europe are expressing dismay over a consultation paper from Basel Committee regulators, which sets out new draft rules for calculating residual risks in bank trading books. The consultative paper,* issued in mid-October, makes few concessions to the counter proposals that the banking industry has put forward during two years of negotiations, reckon bankers.

LONDON – European supervisors are proposing that the current EU regulatory regime for banks’ large exposures be amended, but not scrapped or extensively rewritten. The current limit-based ‘back-stop’ regime will, under this proposal, be revised to ensure a more convergent application of rules and reporting requirements across the EU, and greater consistency with the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD), Europe’s version of the Basel II capital framework.