Europe

European Union lawmakers are taking advantage of their powers in the telecoms arena, blocking a proposed regulation in Portugal and questioning proposed regulations in Germany and Italy. Earlier this month, the European Commission blocked a Portuguese regulation concerning the fixed termination market.   Also in August the commission asked the German telecom regulator, BNetzA, to scrap […]

An International Financial Reporting Standards committee last week rebuffed lobbying efforts to relax employee benefits accounting rules regarding the discount rate used to value pension liabilities. The IFRS Interpretations Committee decided in its July meeting not to add the item to its agenda, explaining that the issue “would be too broad for it to address […]

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi has joined the list of Western health care companies under scrutiny by Chinese officials for bribery or other financial crimes. The 21st Century Business Herald, a state-owned newspaper based in Guangzhou, published a report last week detailing a whistleblower’s account that Sanofi paid bribes to 503 doctors worth 1.69 million yuan […]

The U.K. agency in charge of prudential regulation and supervision this week released its roadmap to strengthen capital standards and comply with other changes triggered by the European Union’s Capital Requirements Directive. The Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) said the changes will affect banks, building societies, and investment firms regulated by the PRA, but will not […]

The European Banking Authority issued a report this week on the regulatory consistency of risk-weighted assets in the EU banking sector, which identified some discrepancies requiring further analysis. The EBA’s second interim report covered RWA consistency in low-default portfolios (LDP), consisting of central governments, credit institutions, and large corporates, all of which typically have low […]

French President Francois Hollande’s administration is pushing for a new law that would require small to medium-sized businesses to notify employees of plans to sell the business, according to a Reuters report this week. The idea behind the proposal is to give employees the opportunity to buy the company, and in the process save their […]

The European Union officials are moving forward with a proposal to curb the interchange fees added to credit and debit card transactions. The proposal detailed on July 24 by the European Commission would cap interchange fees, charged by banks during monetary transfers, at 0.2 percent of the value of consumer debit card transactions; credit card […]

The European Commission is championing new regulations to end mobile roaming charges and create a single EU-wide telecom market. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, the commissioner in charge of the digital agenda, has promised to release a package in September to move the EU closer to a single telecom market. Kroes said because of […]

The European Commission last week announced plans to establish a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) capable of cracking down on fraud that costs the EU millions of euros each year. The independent office would be able to investigate and prosecute cases of fraud involving the EU budget in member states’ courts. The office also could […]

Germany and France are lining up on opposite sides of the proposal to create a single banking authority with the power to pull the plug on failing banks. German officials have voiced displeasure with the idea being pursued by the European Commission, while their French counterparts have welcomed the move. At issue is the so-called […]