Lord Turner, the FSA chairman, told MPs on the Treasury select committee (TSC) that there were three occasions in 2007 and 2008 when the regulator should have been alerted to the scandal, but the issue was overlooked because the messages were relayed to “junior staff”.
I\’ve been saying for some time that while the bad things being done was of course the fault of the people doing bad things the regulators are still at least partially to blame.
\”We were told but we ignored it\” isn\’t a great advertisement in favour of FSA style regulation now, is it?
Almost as good as that advertisement for the SEC, Harry Markupulous\’ (there may be a different arrangement of \”o\”s and \”u\” in that name) written report pointing out that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme.
And a note to those calling for greater regulation of the financial markets. Until you sort out who is going to do the regulating and how, why your new system would be better than this failed one, I\’m afraid you\’re going to get short shrift. For the point is not whether regulation but by whom and how.
More power to this shower who failed to spot price rigging when it was obvious to anyone with a Bloomberg screen (indeed, it\’s been a running joke for some time) just ain\’t gonna cut it.
It hardly needs pointing out that a private company using this excuse because they didn’t supply their paper clips estimate on time would be fined £45m.