Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

I have noticed with great satisfaction that my blogs about the Luxembourg financial center got great attention in many places, and at the same time I'm disappointed that only in Luxembourg they are often misread as being "negative". I certainly disagree with some of the common understandings among professionals there, and I wondered who could be those who are open minded enough to have a look at the arguments instead of the messenger, and see them as "positive" contributions.

I believe that those who were willing to pick up directly on the discussion about what I consider to be dangerous shortcomings, will be the most likely to have a serious second look at the issues. They are the most likely to be able to salvage the center's reputation, when they realize later that the way to defend the financial center is not by hushing up issues, but on the contrary by tightening up the ship. I only hope it will not be too late.

I'll review those leaders, the points of disagreements and possible remedies by starting a list of the prominent hope bearers: the Luxembourg professionals white list.

Let's start with jean Meyer.

Jean Meyer chairs the ABBL (the Luxembourg Bankers’ Association).

He is aware that the financial center depends on the head offices where the decision making power is. He stated on 25 April 2006, one month before the release of my book (Vus... Pas pris! Paris, Le Publieur), that "les acteurs financiers luxembourgeois appartiennent pour leur très grande majorité à des grands groupes financiers internationaux. Ils doivent se battre, au jour le jour, au sein de leur groupe pour drainer et attirer de nouvelles affaires vers le Luxembourg. Et pour chaque nouvelle transaction, ils sont en concurrence avec d’autres entités du groupe." (free translation: the Luxembourg financial actors belong for their very large majority to large international financial groups. They must fight, from day to day, within their group to drain and attract new business towards Luxembourg. And for each new transaction, they are in competition with other entities of the group).

With the conflicts of interest that are unfortunately standard in the Luxembourg regulation because of the actors’ very close and direct say on the evolution of the Luxembourg prudential regulatory environment governing the collective Investment Industry, Jean Meyer as a smart lawyer cannot ignore the consequences of changes to the language of European directives: words added or removed under the influence of professionals may modify the enforcement European directives or other international texts and denature their objectives.

The consequence is that Luxembourg is currently a risk for the brands of international financial groups as the Luxembourg prudential regulatory environment is in question. The UBS-Luxalpha affair is revelatory of a regulatory subordination to professionals that influence the regulator in its duties (they participate in the drawing-up and the interpretation of regulations relating to their specific field) to the point that regulation failed.