Finance

What influence does the financial lobby have over banking regulation and other financial markets?

Corporate interests continue to dominate key expert groups

14.02.2017

New study on the Commission's legislative advisory groups highlights a continuing Big Business bias - despite Commission's new rules.

European Central Bank

The ECB’s ‘quantitative easing’ funds multinationals and climate change

12.12.2016

Corporate Europe Observatory has decoded the list of beneficiaries of the European Central Bank’s corporate bond purchasing scheme. The results are disturbing, unless you think oil, fancy cars, motorways, champagne, and gambling are good places to put public money.

Revolving doors

Barroso’s Gold-plated revolving door

16.08.2016

Never before has a former European Commission official been criticised as much for his post-EU career as ex-Commission president Barroso upon joining infamous US investment bank Goldman Sachs this summer. Citizens are outraged and evidence already points towards a gross violation of the EU Treaty.

Revolving doors

Barroso and Goldman Sachs - a dangerous liaison

19.07.2016

José Manuel Barroso's move to Goldman Sachs has catapulted the EU’s revolving door problem onto the political agenda. It is symbolic of the excessive corporate influence at the highest levels of the EU.

Brexit

How Cameron delivered victories to Big Finance

15.06.2016

From the day a referendum on UK membership of the EU was first announced in 2013, the financial sector started using Cameron’s re-negotiation process to promote its deregulatory agenda. Sometimes lobbying was required, but more often the UK government did its work for them.

Brexit

Lobbying on the UK referendum: a freedom of information black hole

15.06.2016

In the run up to the UK referendum on EU membership on 23 June, Corporate Europe Observatory has tabled a series of freedom of information requests to find out how UK finance lobbies have been influencing the referendum negotiations and the Capital Markets Union. But the Brexit-Bremain referendum seems to be a freedom of information black hole.

EU trade deals

Dangerous Regulatory Duet

18.01.2016

The ongoing EU-US trade negotiations, TTIP, seek to bring rules on both sides of the Atlantic together by means of so-called regulatory cooperation. Our new report with LobbyControl "Dangerous Regulatory Duet" finds that regulatory cooperation procedures have already been used to delay, water down and prevent legislation in the public interest.

Conflicts of interest

Draghi and ECB now even closer to lobbyists from megabanks

13.01.2016

In 2015 the European Central Bank tightened its ethics rules in the wake of a major scandal over privileged information it gave to select financiers. In the future there will be more restrictions on the way the leadership associates with representatives of financial corporations. But the discoveries from the scandal seems to have no bearing on the way the ECB's top brass deals with the quasi-lobby Group of Thirty.

Banking regulation

DG FISMA's lobby meetings: corporate bias and access for unregistered lobbyists

17.12.2015

Juncker´s transparency initiative shows only tip of the iceberg

Hedge funds vs Greece: lobbyists want “cheap ticket” to speculation

15.12.2015

This summer Greece's financial authorities fined 20 hedge funds for speculating against the Greek economy. Now, the main global lobby group for hedge funds is trying to tweak the EU's rules so they can have a free play in the future.

Lobby transparency

Goldman Sachs 'updates' lobby registration and reports x14 more lobby spend in 2014, than 2013

28.04.2015

The investment bank Goldman Sachs has revised its registration in the EU's lobby transparency register and has substantially increased its declared lobby spend from the 2013 figure of less than €50,000 to €700,000-€799,999 for 2014. This compounds Corporate Europe Observatory's view that Goldman Sachs' original registration was not a full reflection of its EU lobbying activity. Yet despite this under-reporting, for five months the register secretariat took little action and Goldman Sachs was able to secure at least four meetings with top Commission officials.

Towards legalised corporate secrecy in the EU?

27.04.2015

How industry, law firms and the European Commission worked together on EU “trade secrets” legislation.