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Channel 4's documentary Dispatches yesterday revealed a document showing that former EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson (2004-2008) personally signed the decision to lift import tariffs for Rusal, the aluminum giant owned by Lord Mandelson's close friend Oleg Deripaska.

Commission President Barroso surprised many with his early announcement on Friday afternoon of the portfolios for the 13 new candidate Commissioners and the 13 current Commissioners who will continue in Barroso-2.

According to eFinancialCareers "it emerged yesterday that the Alternative Investment Management Association is paying Finsbury €1m to lobby against the EU’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers’ Directive."

When BusinessEurope gathered together the Brussels' business world to discuss climate change, protecting economic growth was high on the agenda. But not everyone attending the conference thought that the business community were the right people to come up with the solutions to the climate crisis. Watch what happened on CEO TV - and see what the business delegates are asking for. Trailer: Climate Business (trailer) Full documentary (29 minutes in HD):

A new High Level Working Party of MEPs and Commission representatives starts talks tomorrow on a joint Commission-Parliament lobby disclosure register. Yesterday, more than 25 MEPs were represented (in person or by an assistant) at a seminar in the European Parliament on how to achieve real improvements in transparency around EU lobbying. The seminar is a follow-up to the pledge signed by more than 75 MEPs in the run-up to the European Parliament elections, committing to “to provide leadership in lobbying transparency and ethics”.

ALTER-EU's new report, 'A captive Commission – the role of the financial industry in shaping EU regulation' which was launched last week, shows that most of the so-called 'expert groups' advising the EU Commission on financial market regulation are dominated by industry lobbyists. More than 80% of the non-governmental 'experts' in these advisory groups represent big banks and investment funds.

In response to the ALTER-EU press release posted on this website, law firm Alber & Geiger has pointed out to us that they are in favour of a mandatory lobby disclosure register, but that German federal law and Bar rules prevent German law firms from registering on a voluntary basis.

The new ALTER-EU report 'A captive Commission - the role of the financial industry in shaping EU regulation' can be found at: http://www.alter-eu.org/en/system/files/publications/CaptiveCommission.pdf Brussels, November 5, 2009 - The vast majority of financial ‘experts’ advising the European Commission represent the banks and investors responsible for the global economic crisis, according to a new report published today by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER EU) [1].