LONDON, June 12 (Global Risk Regulator) -- Top Washington bank regulators have begun pitching hard to win public support for the adoption of the new Basel capital adequacy rules in the US. John Dugan, the new head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an agency that has often been critical of the internationally-negotiated new rules to bolster bank safety (Basel II), gave strong backing to US implementation at a dinner for bankers in London on Wednesday evening.

BRUSSELS – Dutch central banker Arnold Schilder is expected to head a new committee being created to help speed up implementation of the European Union’s financial conglomerates directive (FCD). EU regulatory sources say the ECD aims to ensure big financial services firms are properly capitalised.

WASHINGTON – US lawmakers plan early March hearings as part of their plans to draft legislation to tackle potential conflict of interest and competition issues among credit rating agencies, says a spokesman for the Senate’s powerful banking committee.

BASEL, Switzerland – International regulators plan to carry out a survey in the second quarter of this year of how banks and other selected institutions manage the risks they can incur when settling foreign exchange trades.

FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN, Germany – European insurance supervisors remain under pressure from a challenging timetable in their efforts to help develop the Solvency II project for improving the safety and soundness of Europe’s insurance industry.

An influential thinktank says reinsurers are not the cause of any financial instability. Risk-based supervision still required.

Improved accounting and solvency regimes for reinsurers and insurers would help to reduce wrongful use of so-called finite reinsurance, where limited risks are transferred from an insurer to a reinsurer.

European insurers are backing the Solvency II idea, but they’re worried about home-host issues and time pressures.

Strong bank objections are forcing CEBS to make further revisions to the way advanced risk models are validated in the EU. By Melvyn Westlake

Sarbanes-Oxley Act could be fatally damaged by lawsuit. Panel proposes exempting small companies from Act’s harsher rigours. By Melvyn Westlake