Finance

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

Laughing all the way to the banks: top finance regulator moves to top lobbyist role

27.09.2019

The Director of the European Banking Authority is set to become the new Chief Executive of one of the most powerful finance lobby groups in Europe. The move has been approved by the Authority with a decision that flies in the face of common sense and triggers all sorts of alarm bells over conflicts of interest .

Brexit

The finance lobby's risky plans for Brexit

06.06.2019

Any future EU-UK trade agreement post-Brexit will have to deal with the financial sector. And the financial lobby has been pushing its own model for long. Their risky plans on 'regulatory cooperation' are uncovered in this report from Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl, Observatoire des Multinationales and SpinWatch.

Captured states

06.02.2019

Member states play a hugely important role in EU decision-making, but too often they act as middlemen for corporate interests. This report combines case studies, original research, and analysis to illustrate the depth of the problem – and what you can do about it.

Financial crisis

How the financial lobby won the battle in Brussels

13.09.2018

Corporate Europe Observatory shows how the past ten years of financial lobbying have left us vulnerable to future crises and costly bailouts. Despite their responsibility for the 2008 crash, the financial sector has successfully avoided major reform in the decade since - and has shaped new legislation with big loopholes and conditions similar to those that created the crash in the first place.

Finance lobby still shapes EU agenda despite historic meltdown

10.09.2018

Ten years since the crisis - here is our wrap up of the financial lobby's role in causing the crisis and how they have since continued to fight back against people's demands for effective rules on financial markets.

Revolving doors

Accounting for influence

10.07.2018

We pay our taxes, so why don’t corporations? The Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance and this report concludes that it is time to kick this industry out of EU anti-tax avoidance policy.

Revolving doors

Financial regulators and the private sector: permanent revolving door at DG FISMA

11.04.2018

One third of the people who occupied top positions in the Directorate‑General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA) during the period 2008-2017 either came from the financial industry or went there after their time at the Commission.

European Central Bank

ECB President Draghi’s membership of mega-bankers’ club is “maladministration”

17.01.2018

The decision of the European Ombudsman to ask the European Central Bank President to end his membership of an opaque and exclusive club dominated by financial corporations is a step towards ending a culture of secretive collusion between regulators and big banks.

Speculation

Carmageddon: EU driving financial markets the wrong way

23.10.2017

The EU is about to adopt new rules that will help trade in securitised loans, the very financial instruments that helped cause the 2008 financial crisis. Despite warning signs of a new 'subprime bubble' in car loans coming from the US, carmakers and financiers have lobbied the EU to make it easier to speculate on such loans.

European Central Bank

Open doors for forces of finance

03.10.2017

ECB advisory groups are used as lobby platforms by the financial industry, our new report shows. 'Open door for forces of finance at the ECB' reveals that the advisory groups counselling the European Central Bank are dominated by representatives of some of the most influential global financial corporations.

European Central Bank

European Central Bank has bought more climate-trashing bonds

23.06.2017

Pressure has been mounting on the European Central Bank over its purchases of certain corporate bonds, but new research shows no change. In its mission to stimulate the economy, it is still purchasing climate-harming bonds.