Regulation

In an open letter dated January 10, 2012 addressed to the French Prime Minister, EDHEC-Risk Institute has underlined the difficulties and risks associated with implementing a tax on financial transactions in France…

This is not electoral populism to only criticize rating agencies, rather than question their economic utility and try to ask questions about their actual skills, in other words their ability to analyze the creditworthiness of issuers they rate.

According to Jeremy Bell, business lawyer and associate at Ashurst in London, some firms are making sure that their euro deposits are in bank accounts located in strong Eurozone countries instead of accounts in weak ones.

Even in the seemingly unlikely case that a comprehensive solution to the sovereign crisis is found, the changed regulatory backdrop is a major challenge for the banks, and probably for the economy as a whole.

With some 4,000 initiatives registered to date, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) have proved their usefulness for reducing emissions and attracting investments. However, this success could be called into question in the absence of a clear international framework beyond 2012.