In 2006 George Osborne wrote: A party that aspires to be the next government and wants to prepare Britain for the challenges of the next century has got to understand the City’s priorities. Nothing could have been clearer about what he saw his priority to be: keeping his friends in the City happy was his task. His first objective in fulfilling
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The New York Times says tonight on the Standard Chartered story: Not all critics of British banking, however, are holding their fire. Richard Murphy, a London-based authority on tax evasion and money laundering schemes, argues that the accusations against Standard Chartered — even if 99.9 percent of its practices prove to be within the bounds
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The Deloitte link with Standard Chartered is being little noted, except by Reuters who have reported: Allegations that a banking unit of Standard Chartered Plc schemed with Iran to conceal billions of dollars in transactions have dragged Deloitte into the spotlight in another hit to the global accounting and consulting firm. The New York State Department (NYSD) of
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It’s almost impossible not to firstly be amused, and then alarmed by a report in the FT late last night, which said: UK brokers and bankers are flagging twice as many suspicious trades to the Financial Services Authority following warnings that the watchdog plans to spot check industry compliance efforts. During each of the past
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I’ve already mentioned the derisory fine dished out to PWC that’s in the news this morning. Then I noticed this in the FT: The £1.4m ($2.2m) fine that an accounting industry tribunal has levied on PwC is doubly notable. First, because it is the largest ever of its kind. Second, because it is disgracefully small. PwC, auditor to
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The Telegraph had an interesting report today: Vince Cable has warned that businesses could end up with more regulation rather than less from the Government’s Red Tape Challenge campaign. The Business Secretary said that members of the public and consumer groups were using the Government website to lobby hard for existing regulations to be maintained or
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OK, it is only a rumour, but the Guardian reports this morning that: UBS could move the headquarters of its investment bank to London to avoid tough capital requirements being planned by the Swiss authorities, according to reports in the US. A move to London from its Zurich headquarters would allow the bank to minimise
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Global Geo-Politics Net is carrying an important article by David Cronin highlighting the desperate need for a civil society campaign to counter the might of financial lobbying by banks and hedge funds. Besieged by legions of well-funded financial lobbyists (reinforced by columns of financial journalists acting as mouthpieces for the City of London and other
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Policy Exchange: Health and safety gone Mad Hatter | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC. Brendan Barber says on the TUC blog: Policy Exchange have a new report out today, Health and Safety: Reducing the Burden. It’s about as close to being relevant to the needs of the modern workplace as Alice
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