Europe

Opponents to new vehicle emissions standards in the European Union are picking up additional support from the auto industry. Germany, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and luxury car makers BMW and Daimler, has been leading the opposition to the emissions caps on passenger vehicles. Now their efforts are being backed by French car makers Renault […]

A new report by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International revealed that two-thirds of parliaments and legislatures fail to properly police their defense sectors. The survey, released last week, was conducted by the group’s U.K.-based Defence and Security Programme. Linked to TI’s Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index 2013, the survey covered 82 countries and looked at seven different […]

Controversy around global accounting standards continued this week as members of European Parliament, unhappy with the regulations, targeted the accounting board’s funding. According to a report published in The Daily Telegraph, members of parliament are expected to vote this week to attach conditions to the budget for the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the […]

Senior managers could face criminal sanctions for failing to perform due diligence under new banking and insurance regulations taking effect in January in Germany. The German Ringfencing Act, which amends the country’s Banking Act and Insurance Supervision Act, includes detailed requirements senior managers must meet in order to establish “a proper system of business organization.”  […]

In a victory for the United Kingdom, a top court official this week agreed that an EU regulation banning short-selling was based on faulty legal grounds. In March 2012, the European Union adopted a regulation on short-selling, giving the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) the power to intervene in member states’ financial markets to […]

After months of negotiations, European Parliament is poised to move forward this week with a single banking supervisor to oversee the Eurozone’s biggest banks. Known as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the initiative consists of the establishment of a single banking supervisory authority to oversee the 150 largest banks in the eurozone. The new authority […]

Companies convicted of market abuse could face fines up to 15 percent of their annual turnover, under tough new penalties for financial manipulation approved by European Parliament this week. The market abuse directive applies to manipulating financial markets, insider dealing, and abuse of inside information. Companies now will face fines of at least 15 percent […]

France’s planned pension reform is getting a failing grade from critics who say the government is not going far enough to balance its pension system. French administration officials unveiled the pension reform plan at the end of last month. The length of employee contributions will be increased incrementally by one trimester each year beginning in […]

The European Commission this week released the first prong of its enhanced regulatory approach toward the so-called shadow banking sector with proposed new rules for money market funds. Shadow banking – which the commission defines as the system of credit intermediation that involves entities and activities outside regular banking – is less regulated than the […]

The international Financial Stability Board has signaled that more than banks can pose systemic market threats, with its decision last month to expand its “too big to fail” rules to nine global insurers. Now the organization may include more types of institutions, according to an official with the FSB. Eva Hupkes, adviser on regulatory policy […]