A broad brush on Basel: risk mitigation issues
By Celia Gardiner, Partner, Watson Farley and Williams

The Basel II regulatory capital regime has now been in full effect for around six months. Full implementation has coincided with turbulent times in the financial markets. Banks have therefore had to adjust to a new regulatory regime at a time when reduced liquidity has added majo

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Should we fear the return of Grendel's mother? - the Sniffer reports:
If last month we faced the "Funeral in Berlin", where do we look this month for cinematic insight into the state of the trade finance market? "Beowulf" perhaps? For those who have yet to enjoy this "straight to DVD" long-haul in-flight fodder, the eponymous hero is played by the vertically-challenged yet horizontally-substantial South London ac

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June 2006: Too short-Sighted By Half by Vince Heaney
The law of unintended consequences is a powerful force and no more so than when short-sighted policymakers regulate only one half of a market. Take, for example, the California electricity crisis of 2000 and 2001. State legislators partially deregulated the California energy system expecting electricity prices to fall because of greater supply-

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June 2006: Political risk in Colombia
If political rhetoric can be believed, in March Colombia stood on the brink of war with its neighbours Ecuador and Venezuela. A raid across the Ecuadorean border by Colombian forces against anti-government insurgents sparked an international diplomatic incident, prompting both Ecuador and Venezuela to send troops to the border. Hugo Chavez, Ven

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June 2006: Agri Policy Short-Sightedness? - by Vince Heaney
The list of biofuel’s detractors is now as long as the list of its former advocates. Before countries have had time to implement current government proposals to increase biofuels usage, pressure is growing to abandon the idea because of fears over their impact on global food supply. Malcolm Wicks, the UK’s energy minister, recently said, “It wo

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The Last Word: It's Life, Jim, but not as we know it... by Vince Heaney
Thirty-five members of a Russian doomsday cult, which predicts that the world will end in May, are slowly emerging from the cave near Moscow where they have been holed up since November. Should they decide to catch up on current events since the start of their self-imposed incarceration, they will discover media coverage of the credit crunch an

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Looking for Signs of Fraud, by Craig MacDougall
Fraud is something that happens to other people. At least that is the conclusion you might reach if your market experience is limited to the easy money years of the credit boom. Many people in the trade finance industry today have never experienced a fraud or a default and while there are experienced professionals still around who have suffered

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