The Alternative Investment Management Association has welcomed remarks by Jacques de Larosière, Lord Turner, Lord Myners and Sir James Sassoon on the European Commission’s draft
The Alternative Investment Management Association has welcomed remarks by Jacques de Larosière, Lord Turner, Lord Myners and Sir James Sassoon on the European Commission’s draft directive on alternative investment fund managers.
Speaking at a seminar in London hosted by Business for New Europe, de Larosière, whose group on financial supervision in the EU produced a report on the current crisis, said he had ‘personal doubts’ about the ‘wisdom’ of ‘some aspects of the directive’. He said his report did not consider hedge funds a systemic issue and that the directive went ‘much further’ than his report recommended.
Lord Turner (pictured), chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, said there was a danger that hedge funds would become a ‘target’ in Europe, despite the fact that his report and the de Larosière report concluded that they did not pay a major part in the crisis.
Lord Myners, the UK financial services secretary to the Treasury, said the directive was ‘flawed’ and showed ‘poor understanding’ of the industry, and said the UK government was ‘working hard to improve the directive’ with its European partners and was confident that the final directive would be ‘much more acceptable’.
Sir James Sassoon, adviser to the UK’s Conservative Party on Financial Regulation, described the draft directive as ‘protectionist in effect if not intent’, ‘poorly drafted’, and said that it was ‘hugely regrettable’ that the Commission had ‘cut corners’ in rushing it out without proper consultation.
