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International Experts Form Council on Global Financial Regulations

By Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance

Hal Scott, the Nomura Professor and director of the Program on International Financial Systems at Harvard Law School, has been named co-chair of the newly-organized Council on Global Financial Regulation. The Council has been formed by a group of private sector international financial leaders to provide national and international policymakers with independent recommendations from outside government for effective regulation of the global financial system, particularly regulation with significant cross-border implications.

According to a statement released by the Council on Global Financial Regulation, the Council believes that the worldwide financial crisis demonstrates that sound financial regulation must be achieved through international cooperation. Government leaders have called for a greater role for the G-20 and other international government bodies, such as the Financial Stability Board, to encourage a better coordinated international financial regulatory system. The Council aims to play a constructive role in supporting that process by providing government policymakers and regulators with independent recommendations, research, analysis and commentary. The Council also aims to be available for consultation with government officials as a resource on cross-border financial regulatory issues.

The Council believes that, although there have been important improvements in international regulatory cooperation and coordination over the past two years, there remain pressures toward divergence from coordination, tendencies toward unilateral assertion of regulatory proposals with cross-border implications, and new risks of regulatory arbitrage among jurisdictions. The initial focus of the Council?s work will be on pragmatic ways to enhance international direction and coordination of global financial regulation.

The Council will be composed of 15 private sector experts in the field of financial regulation, representing 11 different nationalities. In addition to Co-Chairs Hal Scott and Michael Prada, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Valuation Standards Council, the members include:

• Roel C. Campos, Partner in Charge, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP and Former Commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission;
• Sir Howard Davies, Director, London School of Economics;
• R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean & Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School; Co-Chair, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation;
• John L. Thornton, Chairman, The Brookings Institution; Co-Chair, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation; and
• Olin Wethington, Chairman, Wethington International, LLC; Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Treasury.

Full post as published by The Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog on February 27, 2010 (boomark / email).