Oh, what a difference a financial crisis and an election can have on the entire philosophy and future of financial regulation in a country!
It was less than four years ago, in October 2006, that Margaret Cole, director of enforcement at Britain’s Financial Services Authority, delivered a speech at Fordham University that in hindsight now seems quite remarkable. In her speech (entitled, “The UK FSA: Nobody does it better?”) Cole argued that London’s philosophy of “light touch,” principle-based regulation had led it to become the world’s leading center for mobile capital. She emphasized that the FSA was simply not an ...